4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Lars Unnerstall 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jordy Soladio was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
He has had enough of the noise. Whether Twente can be a quieter place for him, or whether the only cure is a move somewhere the phone-ins are gentler, is a question for the next few months.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Heerenveen in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Twente this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Twente asked and Racing Santander said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Filip Thorvaldsen and Twente agree another 5 years.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
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 0‑1 Nathan De Jong left the room before anybody could ask which.
Lars Unnerstall and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at Twente training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson 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.
Twente asked and KV Mechelen said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 90. Groningen had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The offer from MVV Maastricht for Daouda Weidmann 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.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 1 signed and 1 gone
That is the business done at Twente until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Twente heard it as anything else.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Racing Santander is saying, and nobody at Twente is enjoying the guessing.
Ramiz Zerrouki 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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Words at Twente training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jordy Soladio 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.
Twente asked and Rotherham United said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Two goals and a mark of 8.66 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Twente this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Toluca have kept their man, and Twente go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Nathan De Jong after 2‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
3‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
A brace, and Wout Weghorst takes the afternoon — 9.04
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Wout Weghorst provided it, and the 9.04 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Amin Soultana, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.65
A mark of 7.65 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.82 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Twente have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The deal that would have taken Daouda Weidmann to MVV Maastricht has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Twente with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
“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 Twente, and it is not being withdrawn.
Lars Unnerstall 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.
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.
The name of Daouda Weidmann has come up in conversations Twente were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
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 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.92 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Filip Thorvaldsen is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Lars Unnerstall 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.
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.
He is 22 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.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Heracles tried to reorganise, Twente did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
Thomas van den Belt had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and AZ were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.86 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Ramiz Zerrouki 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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Twente training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson 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.
8.02. 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.
Lars Unnerstall 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.
Marked 8.01 — 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Nathan De Jong was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Twente dressing room was either.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Robin Pröpper trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Wout Weghorst’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Twente needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Twente have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Twente this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
500 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Feyenoord left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout23 Nov 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 0‑2 Nathan De Jong left the room before anybody could ask which.
1 error, one goal, and a night in front of the same three seconds. He will see it tonight, tomorrow and probably in February, and everybody who has played knows exactly which frame he keeps stopping on.
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.
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 Daouda Weidmann and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Stav Lemkin trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Ramiz Zerrouki’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Twente needing him to play as if none of it matters.
7.57, 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.
Lars Unnerstall 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Twente and Go Ahead Eagles, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout9 Nov 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 2‑5 Nathan De Jong left the room before anybody could ask which.
4 saves does not settle the argument about whose fault it was, and the argument will run all week. Goalkeepers carry these scorelines whoever caused them.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Stav Lemkin trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
There were 89 minutes on the clock and NEC had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Twente did not stop to explain themselves.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Twente hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Ramiz Zerrouki 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Twente training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Twente, another week without a signature from Mees Hilgers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Twente this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Heerenveen left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout26 Oct 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 0‑1 Nathan De Jong left the room before anybody could ask which.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Thomas van den Belt trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Marko Pjaca signs something — a contract at Twente or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Everybody at Twente saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 34 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Mees Hilgers’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Twente needing him to play as if none of it matters.
In brief
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Robin Pröpper
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.
Lars Unnerstall 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at Twente training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson 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 is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Twente told Thomas van den Belt something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Twente know it.
Lars Unnerstall 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Filip Thorvaldsen is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
11 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Nathan De Jong after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Twente this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Twente has been clear about where Max Bruns stands, which is more than many ever get.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Nathan De Jong on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Ajax in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ramiz Zerrouki provided it, and the 8.06 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson 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.
8.19. 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Nathan De Jong on a 3‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
0‑3 to Zwolle, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
$23.5M was the most the club would pay and Union SG were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Twente will try again when the window opens; Heerenveen may not be selling by then.
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.
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 Sep 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 0‑3 Nathan De Jong left the room before anybody could ask which.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Twente have paid $5.3M for Oliver Braude, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Spartak Moscow have kept their man, and Twente go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Twente can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Benjamin Nagel, 18, plays like he has been here for years — 7.75
A mark of 7.75 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Twente this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He is 18 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.
The training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 4 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
$5.3M settles it between the clubs for Oliver Braude
Heerenveen have accepted the money. What Twente do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Twente asked and SuperSport United said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Nathan De Jong after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Besiktas have kept their man, and Twente go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Sondre Ørjasæter has gone, the accounts have $12.3M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Brandley Kuwas has just signed for Twente, and for once the answer mattered.
Lars Unnerstall 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 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and AZ waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Twente is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Twente asked and Heracles said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Twente hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Twente this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Donny Timber is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
8 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Spartak Moscow have kept their man, and Twente go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The phone has started ringing about Bart van Rooij again, and this time the name on the line is AZ. Twente are listening politely and promising nothing.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Twente heard it as anything else.
Lars Unnerstall 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.
The shirt still fits. Mees Hilgers is back at Twente, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
“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; Twente are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
In brief
The dugoutBart van Rooij asks for a word with the manager
The terracesSupporters make their feelings known about Bart van Rooij