The first defeat in 13 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Feyenoord; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AZ this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at AZ, and 0 appearances in 19 say he has earned the hearing.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Isak Jensen 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.
4‑0 against Lausanne-Sport, on a night that will be replayed at this club for a generation. Continental reputations are made in single evenings and this was the evening.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AZ have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AZ 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 AZ this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Isak Jensen 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.
Minute 90, against Go Ahead Eagles, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
“I watch every AZ game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at FC Eindhoven runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AZ have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at AZ heard it as anything else.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether AZ can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Peer Koopmeiners 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 Oskar Sivertsen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Something was said to Denso Kasius and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
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 Patati is on it.
“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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at AZ pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
“I watch every AZ game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Telstar runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The 85th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Nikola Vlašić decided nobody was going anywhere. NEC had no time left to answer.
“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 AZ hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Billy Gilmour 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 had been thinking. Isak Jensen 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.
In brief
Player ratingsNikola Vlašić was on a different afternoon to everybody else
Player ratingsIsak Jensen was on a different afternoon to everybody else
4‑1 against SC Freiburg, on a night that will be replayed at this club for a generation. Continental reputations are made in single evenings and this was the evening.
Two goals and a mark of 9.05 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
At 20 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.
Billy Gilmour 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 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Isak Jensen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
In brief
The dugoutNo place for Jordy Clasie on the big day
The offer from Volendam for Kasper Boogaard 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 hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Kasper Boogaard did not need any: 8.11, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at AZ heard it as anything else.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. AZ will try again when the window opens; Den Bosch may not be selling by then.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
Calvin Stengs 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Isak Jensen 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.
“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 AZ, and it is not being withdrawn.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Feyenoord moved on, Mateo Chávez reports back to AZ, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
AZ ran out of time with Pescara. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Maritimo paid $4.5M and AZ took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
AZ close the window on a squad of their own making
14 in and 29 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Peer Koopmeiners 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at AZ, and 0 appearances in 11 say he has earned the hearing.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Isak Jensen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Pescara 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.
VfB Stuttgart paid $37.5M and AZ took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
The offer from Twente for Mexx Meerdink 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.
“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 AZ, and it is not being withdrawn.
Kees Smit has gone, the accounts have $37.5M 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.
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $49.2M for George Hirst, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
$49.2M on the table at Stoke City. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The fee is $7.0M, 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Kaj Sierhuis has, at AZ, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AZ this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The offer went to Emmen 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AZ have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $7.8M — a club that wants Kaj Sierhuis enough to be asked twice.
7 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.
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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Patrick Van de Beek 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Denzel Frimpong 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.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. AZ will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Isak Jensen 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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
12 new faces, and AZ are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and AZ will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
In brief
The dugoutDenso Kasius has become a man the manager trusts
29 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. AZ lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Dennis Geiger 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at AZ, and 0 appearances in 7 say he has earned the hearing.
37 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. AZ lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Isak Jensen 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.
“I watch every AZ game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at MVV Maastricht runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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.
44 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. AZ lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Position 3, 75 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.
Peer Koopmeiners 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 Isak Jensen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at AZ, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Peer Koopmeiners 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.
12 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.
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 Denso Kasius is on it.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one AZ will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AZ have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.21, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Isak Jensen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
AZ asked and Atalanta 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 offer from RKC Waalwijk for Alexandre Penetra 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and De Graafschap waiting with a shirt. Nobody at AZ is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AZ can pretend not to have heard.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AZ 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.
Everything agreed with Go Ahead Eagles, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Heerenveen have kept their man, and AZ go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Patati wants continental football; whether AZ can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AZ this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
$33.1M was the most the club would pay and CSKA Moscow 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Heerenveen have kept their man, and AZ go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at AZ heard it as anything else.
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.
12 goals in 34 games at Fortuna Sittard — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at AZ updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
7 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at AZ has been clear about where Mees de Wit stands, which is more than many ever get.
AZ have gone to CSKA Moscow with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Helmond Sport waiting with a shirt. Nobody at AZ is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“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 AZ, and it is not being withdrawn.
“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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AZ this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
13 appearances and 3 goals away from here, and a player the manager did not have in August. Loans are sent out hoping for exactly this and most of them do not deliver it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Latrell Aken 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.
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 Mees de Wit is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mees de Wit trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Position 3, 75 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.
Kees Smit 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.
Something was said to Valdemar Byskov and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
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 Yoël van den Ban is on it.
Qualification is done, and next season the floodlights come on for something bigger. A stage for the players, oxygen for the accounts and a passport for everybody else.
Not a month, not a run of form — a whole season of being the best 21-year-old anybody in this division could put on a pitch. This is the honour that gets mentioned for the rest of his career.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AZ they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. AZ will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Peer Koopmeiners 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.
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.
15 goals in 25 games at Lokomotiv Sofia — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at AZ updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
12 goals in 34 games at Fortuna Sittard — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at AZ updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
13 appearances at De Graafschap and the goals keep coming. AZ are watching this more closely than the borrowing club would like.
The dugout10 May 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Wouter Goes'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.
7 goals in 22 games at Montana — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at AZ updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Nikola Vlašić signs something — a contract at AZ or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 75 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Rome-Jayden Owusu-Oduro and AZ agree another 5 years.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 6 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
28 goals in 33 games at Den Bosch — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at AZ updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Hessel de Wit scored in the 87th minute, Excelsior had already begun thinking about the journey home, and AZ took the lot.
Player ratings26 Apr 2027
A brace, and Hessel de Wit takes the afternoon — 8.18
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Hessel de Wit provided it, and the 8.18 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
6 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Patati was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Calvin Stengs 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at AZ is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Calvin Stengs 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 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Patati. 1‑0 against Groningen, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
4 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.
A season average of 7.22 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. AZ know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AZ this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
27 goals in 31 games at ADO Den Haag — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at AZ updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
There were 8 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
A brace, and Mexx Meerdink takes the afternoon — 9.14
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mexx Meerdink provided it, and the 9.14 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
Kees Smit, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.71
A mark of 7.71 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Patati wants continental football; whether AZ can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Position 3, 63 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.
Peer Koopmeiners 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.
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.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and AZ will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
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 Jeroen Zoet is on it.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Utrecht in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Jizz Hornkamp’s exile
A season average of 7.42 with 26 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Player ratings22 Mar 2027
A brace, and Mexx Meerdink takes the afternoon — 8.94
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mexx Meerdink provided it, and the 8.94 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AZ they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
15 goals in 25 games at Lokomotiv Sofia — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at AZ updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
It finished 2‑0, and it was Mexx Meerdink’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to AZ.
Player ratings22 Mar 2027
Calvin Stengs was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.18. 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.
12 goals in 29 games at Fortuna Sittard — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at AZ updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Two goals and a mark of 8.97 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
7.79, 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.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.22, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Sydney Osazuwa is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AZ this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 21 he was better than everybody his age in the division for four weeks running, which is harder than one good afternoon. AZ will try not to make too much of it.
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AZ can pretend not to have heard.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
“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 AZ hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
“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; AZ are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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.
Two sides from the top of the table, one afternoon, and a month of talk decided in ninety minutes. AZ will not use the word title this week and will not stop thinking it.
Two goals and a mark of 8.73 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
23 goals in 25 games at Den Bosch — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at AZ updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
22 goals and a season average of 7.37 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
Kees Smit, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.33
A mark of 8.33 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Peer Koopmeiners 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.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Bendegúz Kovács’s exile
The terracesAZ supporters have found a favourite in Patati
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AZ this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
14 goals in 23 games at Lokomotiv Sofia — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at AZ updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Patrick Promes on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Kees Smit, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.42
A mark of 8.42 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
19 goals in 24 games at ADO Den Haag — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at AZ updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“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 AZ hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Kees Smit 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AZ have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
Position 3, 45 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.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $3.7M has been paid because Oskar Sivertsen is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Go Ahead Eagles have kept their man, and AZ go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 4 arrived, 8 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Add another name to the list: MVV Maastricht have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Ayoub Oufkir. The answer from AZ has not changed — yet.
“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 AZ hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
AZ asked and Excelsior said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
16 goals in 22 games at ADO Den Haag — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at AZ updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Calvin Stengs 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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around AZ people have started saying his name in the past tense.
AZ asked and Feyenoord 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 know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Willem II had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AZ can pretend not to have heard.
The chase for Alonzo Engwanda ended with $6.8M changing hands and Utrecht out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Utrecht 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.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Patati provided it, and the 8.33 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
$6.8M on the table at Utrecht. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
$29.6M on the table at CSKA Moscow. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
AZ have gone to Feyenoord with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
AZ have gone to NEC with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. AZ will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
18 goals in 17 games at Den Bosch — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at AZ updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Peer Koopmeiners 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.
“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; AZ are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
14 goals in 18 games at ADO Den Haag — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at AZ updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Match26 Dec 2026
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for AZ. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 4 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Half the programme played, position 3, 36 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Yoël van den Ban obliged against Almere City. 5‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is AZ.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Yoël van den Ban did not need any: 9.60, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“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 AZ, and it is not being withdrawn.
4 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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AZ this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mexx Meerdink. 2‑0 against Groningen, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
200 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.
Marked 6.75 on 10 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Patrick Promes on a 2‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
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.
“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.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Ro-Zangelo Daal 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at AZ has been clear about where Wouter Goes stands, which is more than many ever get.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Patati wants continental football; whether AZ can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Calvin Stengs 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 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.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 86. Utrecht had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
Something was said to Nikola Vlašić and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
A season average of 7.05 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. AZ know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at AZ, and 0 appearances in 14 say he has earned the hearing.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at AZ, and 2 appearances in 13 say he has earned the hearing.
9 goals in 11 games at ADO Den Haag — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at AZ updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
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 Seiya Maikuma is on it.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Nikola Vlašić signs something — a contract at AZ or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Kees Smit provided it, and the 8.57 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Peer Koopmeiners 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 AZ and Zwolle, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Ro-Zangelo Daal 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 8.46 — 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.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Jerolldino Bergraaf obliged against Dordrecht. 4‑1 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is AZ.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AZ have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
A mark of 9.41 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
At 21 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.
Marked 8.14 — 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.
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.
Marked 8.17 — 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.
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AZ this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
9 combined actions and 6.77. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at AZ, and 2 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
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.
8 goals in 6 games at Den Bosch — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at AZ updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Mexx Meerdink was the best thing in any of them.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Wouter Goes trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
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.
4‑1, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
A brace, and Mexx Meerdink takes the afternoon — 8.93
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mexx Meerdink provided it, and the 8.93 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
At 20 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.
Nikola Vlašić 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 here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Ro-Zangelo Daal was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.38. 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.
NAC Breda held the lead for 3 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. AZ answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with 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 AZ can pretend not to have heard.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Patati wants continental football; whether AZ can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AZ this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 21. 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Patati 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.
7 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.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Nikola Vlašić will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at AZ escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
A brace, and Nikola Vlašić takes the afternoon — 8.56
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Nikola Vlašić provided it, and the 8.56 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“I watch every AZ game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Fortuna Sittard runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 3‑4, 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 AZ, and it is not being withdrawn.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Heerenveen have kept their man, and AZ go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Successful dribbles: 18. 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.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Patrick Promes after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Chances created: 10. Nothing on the scoresheet and everything in the match: the pass before the pass, over and over, until the defence stopped guessing right.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 7 arrived, 24 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The offer from Lokomotiv Sofia for Valdemar Byskov 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.
“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.
Ibrahim Sadiq 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Anderlecht have kept their man, and AZ go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Kees Smit is the division's best young player this month
At 20 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. AZ will try very hard not to make too much of 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 AZ can pretend not to have heard.
At 22 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mexx Meerdink. 1‑0 against Heracles, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The offer from FC Nantes for Rome-Jayden Owusu-Oduro 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.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Elijah Dijkstra had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
1 for Stije Resink, marked 7.72, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AZ this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. AZ have paid $38.4M for Nikola Vlašić, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Kees Smit, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.20
A mark of 8.20 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Patati 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Patati 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and PSV waiting with a shirt. Nobody at AZ is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Chaves had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.6M — a club that wants Jorthy Mokio enough to be asked twice.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at AZ heard it as anything else.
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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at AZ can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
In brief
SquadCalvin Stengs falls out with a teammate over standards
The offer went to Torino 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.
“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 AZ hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Calvin Stengs 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Patati 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.