The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 78 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Stephano Carrillo did not need any: 8.26, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad17 May 2027
Said Bakari falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Words at Dordrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Said Bakari is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dordrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Nick Venema will call it something else in private.
Every signing waits for it and every press conference asks about it until it comes. It has come, Dordrecht have their man off the mark, and the second one is always easier.
Position 3, 69 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Noé Lebreton was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
9 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Said Bakari falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Two sides from the top of the table, one afternoon, and a month of talk decided in ninety minutes. Dordrecht will not use the word title this week and will not stop thinking it.
44 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Dordrecht lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Position 2, 65 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Said Bakari and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Noé Lebreton. 2‑1 against MVV Maastricht, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Lorenzo Codutti has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
16 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Dordrecht lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Jong Ajax will want this one forgotten quickly: 11‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Dordrecht were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Soufiane Hetli provided it, and the 8.55 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 11 goals between Dordrecht and Jong Ajax, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
The words a physio says slowly. 46 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
7.55, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
76 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Dordrecht lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Successful dribbles: 33. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The 2-goal deficit was real and so was the recovery. Stephano Carrillo was at the centre of it, Jong AZ were at the end of it, and everybody who left early will hear about this one for years.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.61 for the rest of it.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Lorenzo Codutti has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Marked 8.47 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
83 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Dordrecht lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Dordrecht will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dordrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑4 Cody Blind left the room before anybody could ask which.
Successful dribbles: 12. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The words a physio says slowly. 121 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 60 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Said Bakari was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Nick Venema had Dordrecht level again within 4 minutes, and RKC Waalwijk never got to play with a lead at all.
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Nick Venema falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
129 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Dordrecht lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 69 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
AZ go through and Dordrecht go home, 1‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Said Bakari and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
137 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Dordrecht lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Dordrecht will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Dordrecht have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mica Pinto was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 83 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Soufiane Hetli provided it, and the 9.48 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
8 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Dordrecht and Almere City in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Said Bakari was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Noah Bischof was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.76. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Dordrecht will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Three points for Dordrecht, 3‑2 the final word against De Graafschap in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Said Bakari falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.