There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.83 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“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; FC Eindhoven are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Kevin van Veen 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.
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.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Words at FC Eindhoven training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Terrence Douglas 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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 91th minute. VVV-Venlo will replay every second of the added time for a week.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what FC Eindhoven can pretend not to have heard.
Successful dribbles: 25. 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.
“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 FC Eindhoven know it.
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.
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Words at FC Eindhoven training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sven Simons 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.
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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Daan Huisman’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and FC Eindhoven needing him to play as if none of it matters.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at FC Eindhoven would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
6 goals in one match, Marcus Ingvartsen on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of FC Eindhoven and Jong AZ.
Kevin van Veen 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Jeroen Weghorst 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Jeroen Simons is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Memphis De Jong has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
0‑3 to Dordrecht, 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.
Every long career reaches the week the player starts thinking about the last one. He would like it to be at the club that first put him on a pitch, and FC Eindhoven now know that too.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Víctor Penayo has just signed for FC Eindhoven, and for once the answer mattered.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bodo/Glimt have kept their man, and FC Eindhoven go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Farouq Limouri was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.41 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” FC Eindhoven have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 3 arrived, 2 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Al Ahly is saying, and nobody at FC Eindhoven is enjoying the guessing.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Al Ahly have kept their man, and FC Eindhoven go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” FC Eindhoven have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. FC Eindhoven have done the hard part with Bodo/Glimt, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Lazio have kept their man, and FC Eindhoven go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Marcus Ingvartsen in the middle of it, and Jong Utrecht unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
Marked 8.28. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at FC Eindhoven.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Words at FC Eindhoven training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Farouq Limouri 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.
Two goals and a mark of 9.30 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. FC Eindhoven have done the hard part with AGF, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
A 3‑2 win over MVV Maastricht, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
FC Eindhoven asked and FC Nordsjaelland said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Kevin van Veen 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 Farouq Limouri was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Everything agreed with FC Midtjylland, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Kevin van Veen 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.
“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 FC Eindhoven, and it is not being withdrawn.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. FC Eindhoven have done the hard part with Vitesse, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
“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; FC Eindhoven are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Utrecht have kept their man, and FC Eindhoven go back to a list with one name crossed off 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.
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.
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 FC Eindhoven 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Hugo Deenen, and the manager let it.
The dugout28 Dec 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.” Nathan Dijks chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
0‑1 to Almere City, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Sven Simons 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.
Edoly Lukoki 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 dugout21 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Nathan Dijks left the room before anybody could ask which.
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
Nobody at FC Eindhoven 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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Daan Huisman’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and FC Eindhoven needing him to play as if none of it matters.
In brief
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Edoly Lukoki
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 10.00 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Kevin van Veen provided it, and the 8.23 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Enoch Mastoras did not need any: 7.65, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.93 for the rest of it.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Rangelo Janga will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at FC Eindhoven escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.84 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
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.
Successful dribbles: 20. 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.
Kevin van Veen and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Sven Simons 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.
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then ADO Den Haag scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
Successful dribbles: 20. 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Eindhoven 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 Sven Simons was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑2, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Boardroom30 Nov 2026
87% of the income goes out in wages at FC Eindhoven
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. FC Eindhoven will quote 16 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Devon Koswal 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. 6 goals between FC Eindhoven and Helmond Sport, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” FC Eindhoven may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at FC Eindhoven training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Michael Verrips 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.
Kevin van Veen 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.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad16 Nov 2026
The division's best last weekend was a FC Eindhoven man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Yvandro Borges Sanches was the best thing in any of them.
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 Edoly Lukoki is on it.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.09 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Three points for FC Eindhoven, 3‑2 the final word against Jong PSV in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at FC Eindhoven training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Michael Verrips 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Sven Simons 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.
At 34 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Daan Huisman 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Eindhoven this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at FC Eindhoven, another week without a signature from Devon Koswal.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
87% of the income goes out in wages at FC Eindhoven
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Joep Koppert is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
The words a physio says slowly. 17 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. VVV-Venlo kept coming because nothing stopped them, and FC Eindhoven will be asked about the last half hour all week.
Two goals and a mark of 9.40 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daan Huisman was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. FC Eindhoven told Michael Verrips something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
In brief
Squad8 new faces, and FC Eindhoven are still learning each other
24 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. FC Eindhoven lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Kevin van Veen 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.
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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
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.
32 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. FC Eindhoven lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
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.
Willem II next, and one man in the FC Eindhoven dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The words a physio says slowly. 39 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.88 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
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.
Devon Koswal and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at FC Eindhoven training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Michael Verrips 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.
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.
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Sven Blummel 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.
In brief
Boardroom109% of the income goes out in wages at FC Eindhoven
The words a physio says slowly. 46 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
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.
Kevin van Veen 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.
He is 20 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.
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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Kevin van Veen 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 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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Hugo Deenen has his answer from FC Eindhoven; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
A mark of 7.82, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Nathan Dijks kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Looking ahead21 Sep 2026
FC Eindhoven take on the side everybody is chasing
Cambuur arrive as leaders. A side at the top is beaten roughly once a month, and the club that does it gets a week it remembers for a year.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sven Jansen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
In brief
The dugoutEdoly Lukoki has become a man the manager trusts
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Successful dribbles: 26. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The 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. Feyenoord have kept their man, and FC Eindhoven go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at FC Eindhoven, another week without a signature from Devon Koswal.
That is the business done at FC Eindhoven 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.
The clock did what Heerenveen would not, and ended it. Supporters who watched the countdown will spend the next window doing it again.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at FC Eindhoven training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Michael Verrips 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.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Dyon Dorenbosch 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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Thijs Muller is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Emmen next, and one man in the FC Eindhoven dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
“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 FC Eindhoven, and it is not being withdrawn.
Two goals and a mark of 9.12 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Dyon Dorenbosch 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 helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Jong Utrecht tried to reorganise, FC Eindhoven did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
Thijs Muller, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 8.64
A mark of 8.64 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.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Jort Borgmans had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.62 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
The deal with Union SG is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Dyon Dorenbosch 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 Jorn Brondeel 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. PSV have kept their man, and FC Eindhoven go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. FC Eindhoven have done the hard part with Go Ahead Eagles, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Eindhoven this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at FC Eindhoven training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sven Simons 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.
FC Eindhoven 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.
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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation FC Eindhoven are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Dyon Dorenbosch 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.
Boardroom10 Aug 2026
2 academy players handed senior numbers at FC Eindhoven
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Jeroen Babel 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Jeroen De Vrij is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daan Huisman was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at FC Eindhoven, another week without a signature from Rangelo Janga.
Nothing about this will be in a press release. A plan went upstairs, came back rejected, and the version of the club that would have existed in three years' time just quietly stopped being possible.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sven Simons was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
FC Eindhoven have made the call to Hertha BSC. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
“43 caps was 43 more than the boy who started ever expected.” At 34 he has stepped away from the national side and has not stepped away from FC Eindhoven.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Zakaria Haddaoui has his answer from FC Eindhoven; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
In brief
The dugoutThijs Muller knocks on the manager’s door