Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ruben van Bommel 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.
Delano Burgzorg 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.
Nobody at AZ will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Mexx Meerdink signs something — a contract at AZ or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
What was a back-page story is now a matter for the terraces, and the terraces do not do nuance. AZ would like it dealt with before it becomes the only question anybody asks.
PSV have accepted the money. What AZ do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
The offer went to Feyenoord this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
The offer went to Twente this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
The phone has started ringing about Oussama Targhalline again, and this time the name on the line is Den Bosch. AZ are listening politely and promising nothing.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
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.
Calvin Stengs 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.
Nobody at AZ will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Mexx Meerdink signs something — a contract at AZ or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Utrecht next, and one man in the AZ dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
6 goals in 31 games at Dordrecht — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at AZ updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and AZ have no good answer.
23 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AZ will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
AZ and Ajax have settled on $4.4M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
The offer went to Ajax this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
The offer from Groningen for Lequincio Zeefuik was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
104 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Holstein Kiel lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Holstein Kiel, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Toulouse FC keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
At 22 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.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Words at Holstein Kiel training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. John Tolkin 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 Holstein Kiel this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Eintracht Frankfurt have kept their man, and Holstein Kiel go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Holstein Kiel, and it is not being withdrawn.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Holstein Kiel is running low.
7.65, 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.
Alexander Prass 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Holstein Kiel this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Holstein Kiel are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Squad1 Mar 2027
John Tolkin 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.
Something was said to Adrián Kaprálik and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The dugout1 Mar 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Jan Hoffmann was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Holstein Kiel dressing room was either.
Words at Holstein Kiel training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adrián Kaprálik 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.
Andu Kelati 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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Steven Skrzybski’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Holstein Kiel needing him to play as if none of it matters.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Holstein Kiel have no good answer.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Holstein Kiel would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and David Zec has written the date down.
2 kept out from twelve yards, and a stadium that will describe each of them for twenty years. A goalkeeper needs one night like this in a career, and this was it.
Jonas Meffert 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Tino Kusanović is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Adrián Kaprálik was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Fiete Arp. 2‑0 against SC Paderborn, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Level with 85 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Holstein Kiel had all but put away. Magdeburg will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.