“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Excelsior can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Noa El Hamdaoui will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Excelsior the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Excelsior 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 Irakli Yegoian was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 Excelsior know it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Irakli Yegoian was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The young player of the month award goes to a 21-year-old at Excelsior who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
“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 Excelsior know it.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Excelsior told Gyan de Regt something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Excelsior, and it is not being withdrawn.
Toma Bašić and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Words at Excelsior training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Irakli Yegoian 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Lennard Hartjes trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
Jerolldino Bergraaf has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
Toma Bašić 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.
“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 Excelsior know it.
There was one mistake and it ended in the net. Defenders are judged on the worst thing they did rather than on the eighty-nine minutes either side of it, which is unfair and is also the job.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Gyan de Regt is on it.
Wrexham wanted more than $9.4M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Deadline passes with 19 signed and 12 gone
That is the business done at Excelsior 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.
Excelsior asked and De Graafschap 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 fee is $1.1M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Emmen drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Excelsior is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Words at Excelsior training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gyan de Regt 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.
Excelsior ran out of time with ADO Den Haag. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Excelsior is running low.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. TOP Oss have kept their man, and Excelsior go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Words at Excelsior training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gyan de Regt 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 Excelsior this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Excelsior will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Excelsior have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Excelsior they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Excelsior asked and PSV 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 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.
Jorrit Smeets 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 is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Excelsior told Casper Widell something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Excelsior have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Excelsior they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad17 May 2027
Words at Excelsior training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Szymon Włodarczyk 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.
Calvin Raatsie 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.
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Excelsior, another week without a signature from Casper Widell.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Stan Henderikx has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
Position 12 on 37 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
Marked 7.64 at 21, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Player ratings3 May 2027
Up for the corner, and Casper Widell delivers — 7.82
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Casper Widell scored, was marked 7.82, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
A season average of 7.00 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Excelsior know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Squad3 May 2027
Words at Excelsior training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lewis Schouten 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 Excelsior this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Jorrit Smeets will call it something else in private.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lewis Schouten was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Excelsior this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Aymen Sliti is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Casper Widell trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Calvin Raatsie signs something — a contract at Excelsior or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
A side in position 4 visits next. The result will not make anybody’s season and it could quietly break the shape of one, which is why the manager has been watching the video since Sunday.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Irakli Yegoian’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
0‑2 against Go Ahead Eagles, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Rick Meissen 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.
Successful dribbles: 17. 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.
Calvin Raatsie 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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Eric da Silva Moreira has come out of that comparison in the side, and Excelsior have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Daley De Roon chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
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. Westerlo have kept their man, and Excelsior go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Calvin Raatsie 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.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 8 arrived, 3 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
$69.0K was the most the club would pay and Heracles 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Szymon Włodarczyk was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Feyenoord have kept their man, and Excelsior go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Djenahro Nunumete 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 dugout7 Sep 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Gyan de Regt's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Eric da Silva Moreira has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
The offer from NEC for Casper Widell 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.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $87.0K — a club that wants Gabriël Reiziger enough to be asked twice.
Everything agreed with Liverpool, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Excelsior this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
$80.0K on the table at Zwolle. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Marten Depay has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Stijn van Gassel and Excelsior agree another 4 years.
“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 Excelsior know it.
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.
Still no offer on the table, and Stijn van Gassel’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.