“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Utrecht can pretend not to have heard.
The fee is $1.3M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Zwolle drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
$890.0K on the table at Feyenoord. 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 number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $989.6K — a club that wants Thomas Beelen enough to be asked twice.
Sparta Rotterdam paid $1.0M and Utrecht took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Utrecht will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 24 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ibrahim Sadiq will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Utrecht the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“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.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
Utrecht offered $160.0K; Volendam said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Tobias Lauritsen has his answer from Utrecht; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Add another name to the list: Heerenveen have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Emirhan Demircan. The answer from Utrecht has not changed — yet.
“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 Utrecht, and it is not being withdrawn.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Utrecht will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Utrecht they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Jerry St. Juste and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Every 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 Ángel Alarcón is on it.
Qualification is secured, and next season the big floodlit nights are continental ones. For the players it is a stage; for the accounts it is a lifeline; for the supporters it is passports.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 41 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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 Utrecht, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Utrecht have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Utrecht will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
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.
Done, and with games to spare. Next season has floodlit nights against clubs from other countries in it, and the accounts have a line they did not have last year.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 50 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 May 2028
Words at Utrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jaygo van Ommeren is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
It is 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Stefán Ingi Sigurðarson trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Utrecht know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ibrahim Sadiq will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Utrecht the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Jerry St. Juste 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 Utrecht, and 4 appearances in 17 say he has earned the hearing.
10 shut-outs in 33 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Kevin Gadellaa has been having a lot of them.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Pharell Nash is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
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.
“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 Utrecht, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Niklas Vesterlund will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Utrecht the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Jerry St. Juste 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 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 Utrecht know it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jaygo van Ommeren was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Noël Beulens 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 have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Utrecht can pretend not to have heard.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Utrecht can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
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.
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 Jerry St. Juste is on it.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
“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 Utrecht know it.
Dani de Wit 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ibrahim Sadiq will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Utrecht the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Jerry St. Juste was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Groningen scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
“I watch every Utrecht game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Farul Constanța runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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 Kevin Paredes is on it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Utrecht can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Utrecht they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Utrecht heard it as anything else.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
Squad3 Apr 2028
Words at Utrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jaygo van Ommeren 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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Utrecht, and 4 appearances in 12 say he has earned the hearing.
Nobody at Utrecht 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.
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.
9 clean sheets from 29 appearances at Telstar. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
“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 Utrecht will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Squad27 Mar 2028
Pharell Nash, 20, is the weekend’s best young player
Measured against every other kid in the division and first among them. The senior award is where Utrecht would like this to lead.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Stefán Ingi Sigurðarson trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Pharell Nash did not need any: 7.66, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
17 goals in 28 games at RKC Waalwijk — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Utrecht updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
He is 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Wout Dost 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Patrick Aké 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Robin Simons is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
16 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Utrecht lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Utrecht they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utrecht 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: Noah Ohio. 3‑1 against Fortuna Sittard, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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 particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Miliano Jonathans 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 8.10 — 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.
24 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Utrecht lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Utrecht is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Utrecht heard it as anything else.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Ryan Bergwijn after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Davy van den Berg has agreed terms with ADO Den Haag for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Dani de Wit 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: 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.
“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; Utrecht are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Words at Utrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jaygo van Ommeren 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Stefán Ingi Sigurðarson. 2‑1 against PSV, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Utrecht can give him that is a question about the club, 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 Utrecht 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.
Utrecht asked and De Graafschap said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Ángel Alarcón 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 8.11 — 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Utrecht they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The phone has started ringing about Jesse van de Haar again, and this time the name on the line is AZ. Utrecht are listening politely and promising nothing.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Jessey Sneijder has agreed terms with ADO Den Haag for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
Utrecht 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.
14 goals in 23 games at RKC Waalwijk — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Utrecht updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Utrecht ran out of time with AZ. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
In brief
BoardroomNobody left the Utrecht dressing room in a hurry
Utrecht had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Go Ahead Eagles, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Mees de Wit is living that version at Utrecht, and it tends to show in the first month.
AZ have accepted the money. What Utrecht do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Niklas Vesterlund will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Utrecht the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Utrecht close the window on a squad of their own making
4 in and 7 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.
Successful dribbles: 24. 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 clubs have shaken hands with Go Ahead Eagles; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Utrecht people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Utrecht can pretend not to have heard.
Jerry St. Juste and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Words at Utrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jaygo van Ommeren 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. RKC Waalwijk have kept their man, and Utrecht go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
13 goals in 20 games at RKC Waalwijk — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Utrecht updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Two goals and a mark of 8.27 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
7.95, 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.
Utrecht had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Estudiantes de Merida, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Luca Neu has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
6 goals in one match, Dani de Wit on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Utrecht and Volendam.
The phone has started ringing about Ibrahim Sadiq again, and this time the name on the line is TOP Oss. Utrecht are listening politely and promising nothing.
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.
The fee is $750.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Vitesse drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Jerry St. Juste was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Heerenveen have kept their man, and Utrecht go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Dani de Wit wins it after the whistle should have gone
91 minutes played. Dani de Wit found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Go Ahead Eagles went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Utrecht have done the hard part with Vitesse, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Middlesbrough is saying, and nobody at Utrecht is enjoying the guessing.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Jerry St. Juste 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Jaygo van Ommeren was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Utrecht 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.
A 2‑1 win over Go Ahead Eagles, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The phone has started ringing about Jamie Schuldes again, and this time the name on the line is Twente. Utrecht are listening politely and promising nothing.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Utrecht can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Utrecht is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Yannick Leliendal scored, was marked 7.91, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
“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 Utrecht hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
Add another name to the list: De Graafschap have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Wessel Kooy. The answer from Utrecht has not changed — yet.
Three points for Utrecht, 3‑1 the final word against NEC in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Words at Utrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jaygo van Ommeren 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.
Jerry St. Juste 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 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 Utrecht know it.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Tobias Lauritsen. 3‑1 against Heerenveen, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
At 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.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Tobias Lauritsen in the middle of it, and Heerenveen unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
Marked 7.82 on 9 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Half the programme played, position 7, 21 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
In brief
Player ratingsÁngel Alarcón beats them one at a time
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Bright van Dijk obliged against Heracles. 3‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Utrecht.
Two goals and a mark of 8.36 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Utrecht have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
2‑3 to Sparta Rotterdam, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Words at Utrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jaygo van Ommeren 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.
0‑2 against Porto. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
“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 Utrecht hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
At 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Utrecht they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“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.
Dani de Wit and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Words at Utrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jaygo van Ommeren is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Utrecht told Tobias Lauritsen something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“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 Utrecht, and 0 appearances in 13 say he has earned the hearing.
0‑3. There is a level at which football is played every single week by clubs that have been doing it for fifty years, and an evening like this is what it feels like to arrive there without having done it.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Words at Utrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jaygo van Ommeren 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Utrecht can tell you which week it ends in.
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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Utrecht pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Words at Utrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jaygo van Ommeren 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.
Nobody at Utrecht 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 dugout22 Nov 2027
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.” Ryan Bergwijn chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Utrecht have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
The 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 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Utrecht told Andries Noppert something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
7 goals in 8 games at RKC Waalwijk — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Utrecht updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
2‑2 against Red Bull Salzburg, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Niklas Vesterlund will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Utrecht the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
“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 Utrecht, and 0 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
Two goals and a mark of 8.12 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings1 Nov 2027
Tim Braem, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.63
A mark of 7.63 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.
Jerry St. Juste was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Ángel Alarcón 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Utrecht told Ángel Alarcón something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
0‑0 against Red Bull Salzburg, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
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.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 5 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Jerry St. Juste wants continental football; whether Utrecht can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jaygo van Ommeren was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Jaygo van Ommeren has his answer from Utrecht; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Jerry St. Juste and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Words at Utrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jaygo van Ommeren 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Utrecht can tell you which week it ends in.
“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.
The dugout18 Oct 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Ryan Bergwijn to a room that had heard them before.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Niklas Vesterlund will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Utrecht the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Utrecht told David Min something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
0‑4. There is a level at which football is played every single week by clubs that have been doing it for fifty years, and an evening like this is what it feels like to arrive there without having done 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 Utrecht can pretend not to have heard.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“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 Utrecht hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Jerry St. Juste 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 Jaygo van Ommeren 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. Utrecht told Jerry St. Juste something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utrecht 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.
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.
Player ratings27 Sep 2027
Ángel Alarcón was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.29. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Ryan Bergwijn on a 3‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
0‑6. There is a level at which football is played every single week by clubs that have been doing it for fifty years, and an evening like this is what it feels like to arrive there without having done 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.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Jerry St. Juste and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match14 Sep 2027
Nobody could stop scoring
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Utrecht and Bayern Munich in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
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.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 93. Twente had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Niklas Vesterlund will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Utrecht the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“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 Utrecht hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
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.
The unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Words at Utrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jaygo van Ommeren 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Cercle Brugge have kept their man, and Utrecht go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Utrecht close the window on a squad of their own making
12 in and 19 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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Utrecht heard it as anything else.
“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; Utrecht are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
Utrecht asked and Middlesbrough said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Utrecht will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
$3.5M on the table at Almere 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.
Vasilis Barkas 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 19 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Utrecht will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Almere City have kept their man, and Utrecht go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“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; Utrecht are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
A 1‑0 win over Go Ahead Eagles, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The dugout23 Aug 2027
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.” Ryan Bergwijn kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Utrecht will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Niklas Vesterlund will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Utrecht the goodbyes have quietly begun.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 39 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Feyenoord have kept their man, and Utrecht go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“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 Utrecht, and 0 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Matisse Didden trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“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 Utrecht will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
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.
A side in position 13 visits next. The result will not make anybody’s season and it could quietly break the shape of one, which is why the manager has been watching the video since Sunday.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Utrecht will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Utrecht can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Utrecht, another week without a signature from Odysseus Velanas.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Utrecht will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
VVV-Venlo paid $1.3M and Utrecht took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Yoann Cathline has his answer from Utrecht; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nikolas Panagiotou was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Yoann Cathline trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Utrecht will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Niklas Vesterlund will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Utrecht the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The clubs have shaken hands with Heerenveen; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Jerry St. Juste 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. Twente have kept their man, and Utrecht go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
8 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Tobias Lauritsen signs something — a contract at Utrecht or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Utrecht that is a harder question to answer.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 71 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Feyenoord have kept their man, and Utrecht go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Words at Utrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikolas Panagiotou is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Utrecht, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 78 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The offer from AZ for Ángel Alarcón 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Cambuur have kept their man, and Utrecht go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
28 games, 13 goals, and a squad option that has arrived without a fee attached. The interesting question at Utrecht now is not whether he plays but who he displaces.
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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Utrecht will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about 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 Utrecht can pretend not to have heard.
“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.
At 23 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 is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Jerry St. Juste wants continental football; whether Utrecht can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Utrecht will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Utrecht they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Jerry St. Juste 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 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 Utrecht know it.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Utrecht will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Tobias Lauritsen signs something — a contract at Utrecht or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Utrecht. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 103 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Vitesse waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Utrecht is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The name of Siebe Horemans has come up in conversations Utrecht were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Jerry St. Juste 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 approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Words at Utrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikolas Panagiotou 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 did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Joris van Overeem has his answer from Utrecht; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
6 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Utrecht have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Utrecht will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Utrecht heard it as anything 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 Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Utrecht asked and Twente 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 demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Zidane Iqbal is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Utrecht can pretend not to have heard.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Artem Stepanov is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
36 appearances and 26 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Nikolas Panagiotou 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.
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.
In brief
The dugoutZidane Iqbal knocks on the manager’s door
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Utrecht is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Jerry St. Juste 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 19 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nikolas Panagiotou was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
9 shut-outs in 19 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Kevin Gadellaa has been having a lot of them.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Andile Furman has written the date down.
Odysseus Velanas has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
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.
26 goals in 36 games at TOP Oss — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Utrecht updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
Oleksandr Lytvynenko is 35 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
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.
Ibrahim Sadiq has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utrecht 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 Nikolas Panagiotou was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Utrecht know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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 Artem Stepanov is on it.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Utrecht, and it is not being withdrawn.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 47 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Andile Furman. 3‑2 against Heerenveen, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Something was said to Dani de Wit and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Squad3 May 2027
Words at Utrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikolas Panagiotou 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.
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 87th, and Sparta Rotterdam spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Niklas Vesterlund will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Utrecht the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Jerry St. Juste 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 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.
Marked 8.31 — 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.
24 goals in 32 games at TOP Oss — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Utrecht updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
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.
Jerry St. Juste 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 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 Utrecht know it.
15 goals in 13 games at Den Bosch — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Utrecht updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
200 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.
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.95, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
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 won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 11 combined actions and a mark of 7.46, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
13 goals in 28 games at Waasland-Beveren — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Utrecht updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each 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 Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Artem Stepanov is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Something was said to Marius Broholm and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
It is sentimental, it is completely genuine, and it is the beginning of a departure nobody has announced. The club can be gracious about it or it can pretend not to have heard.
“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 Utrecht, and 7 appearances in 29 say he has earned the hearing.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Ryan Bergwijn after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Utrecht is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Jerry St. Juste was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Dani de Wit’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Utrecht needing him to play as if none of it matters.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
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.
24 goals in 29 games at TOP Oss — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Utrecht updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
1 for Jerry St. Juste, marked 7.76, 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.
Jerry St. Juste and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Jamie Schuldes is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
12 goals in 26 games at Waasland-Beveren — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Utrecht updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nikolas Panagiotou was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 7.86 for the rest of it.
14 combined actions and 7.05. 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Gjivai Zechiël 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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Yoann Cathline.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Utrecht they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Utrecht heard it as anything else.
Jerry St. Juste 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; Utrecht are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Utrecht, another week without a signature from Tobias Lauritsen.
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.
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.
Two goals and a mark of 9.04 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utrecht 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: Andile Furman. 3‑1 against Heracles, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Ángel Alarcón 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 did not go to Vitesse to sit and watch. I want to come back to Utrecht and fight for my place.” 6 appearances in 26 matches say the rest.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
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.” Ryan Bergwijn kept it short after the 3‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Gjivai Zechiël scored, was marked 7.75, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Yoann Cathline 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: 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Utrecht can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
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.
Three points for Utrecht, 1‑0 the final word against Telstar in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Words at Utrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikolas Panagiotou 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 did not go to ASA Târgu Mureș to sit and watch. I want to come back to Utrecht and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 23 matches say the rest.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
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.” Ryan Bergwijn kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Wessel Kooy
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Henk Veerman
0-3, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
22 goals in 23 games at TOP Oss — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Utrecht updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each 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 Utrecht 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 Nikolas Panagiotou 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 Utrecht, and 7 appearances in 21 say he has earned the hearing.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Utrecht they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Odysseus Velanas is a Utrecht player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Jerry St. Juste 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 Utrecht, and 5 appearances in 22 say he has earned the hearing.
Twente left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout1 Feb 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Ryan Bergwijn to a room that had heard them before.
The chase for Ibrahim Sadiq ended with $3.0M changing hands and AZ out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Jerry St. Juste 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Wessel Kooy was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Andile Furman. 2‑1 against Volendam, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
21 goals in 20 games at TOP Oss — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Utrecht updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“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 Utrecht, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from AZ for Michael Brouwer 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 MVV Maastricht waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Utrecht is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Arthur Zagré had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Utrecht offered $4.8M; Vitesse said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
The offer from Den Bosch for Joris van Overeem 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Vitesse have kept their man, and Utrecht go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $5.3M — a club that wants Elias Huth enough to be asked twice.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
The offer from AZ for Alonzo Engwanda 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.
Utrecht have gone to Vitesse 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.
7.65, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Add another name to the list: Den Bosch have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Joris van Overeem. The answer from Utrecht has not changed — yet.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Utrecht and Heerenveen, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Andile Furman, and the manager let it.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Ángel Alarcón 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.
200 games in these colours. Service of that kind gets rarer every season, and the crowd knows it.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Gjivai Zechiël was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.06. 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.
A 2‑1 win over NAC Breda, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Adrian Blake, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.02
A mark of 8.02 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.
Successful dribbles: 24. 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 is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Jerry St. Juste wants continental football; whether Utrecht can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Gjivai Zechiël 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 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ángel Alarcón was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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; Utrecht are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“I watch every Utrecht game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Go Ahead Eagles runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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 7.68 for the rest of it.
“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 Utrecht hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Jerry St. Juste 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. Ángel Alarcón 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ángel Alarcón was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Ryan Bergwijn on a 2‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Jerry St. Juste 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: 21. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Utrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ángel Alarcón 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.
Level with 86 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Utrecht had all but put away. AZ will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Utrecht told Jerry St. Juste something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
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.
“I watch every Utrecht game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at ASA Târgu Mureș runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Ryan Bergwijn on a 2‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Vasilis Barkas and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“Nobody 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Utrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ángel Alarcón 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.
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.
Nobody at Utrecht 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Utrecht know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
5 goals in 11 games at Waasland-Beveren — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Utrecht updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
11 appearances at Emmen and the goals have stopped going in. Utrecht lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“I watch every Utrecht game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Go Ahead Eagles 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.” 1‑4, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at Utrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adrian Blake 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
The terracesEverybody has an opinion about Vasilis Barkas
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.
6 goals in one match, David Min on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Utrecht and Cambuur.
“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 Utrecht, and 4 appearances in 10 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Utrecht can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ángel Alarcón was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Marius Broholm did not need any: 7.78, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.97 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 35 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Utrecht is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ángel Alarcón was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Level with 94 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Utrecht had all but put away. Heracles will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
Something was said to Henk Veerman and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Utrecht can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Heracles in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Utrecht. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
5 shut-outs in 7 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Kevin Gadellaa has been having a lot of them.
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.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Tobias Lauritsen. 2‑0 against Telstar, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Ángel Alarcón 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.
Vasilis Barkas 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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Utrecht and Excelsior in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
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.
Vasilis Barkas and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Vasilis Barkas knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
“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.
Nobody at Utrecht is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
Itumeleng Khune is 39 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
A point taken on 91 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Victor Jensen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Utrecht can pretend not to have heard.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Utrecht close the window on a squad of their own making
7 in and 14 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.
“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 Utrecht hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Jerry St. Juste 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 demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Kevin Paredes is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Abderahmane Soussi had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Utrecht can pretend not to have heard.
Gjivai Zechiël 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: 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.
Utrecht 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.
A point taken on 85 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
“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 Utrecht, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from PSM for Abderahmane Soussi 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.
Gjivai Zechiël 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.
Sparta Rotterdam pay $550.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Utrecht asked and Vitesse 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Victor Jensen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $11.8M has been paid because Andile Furman is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
“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.
Feyenoord did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $2.9M for Jerry St. Juste, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Andile Furman has, at Utrecht, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Andile Furman from Ajax Cape Town for $11.8M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Utrecht asked and Viking said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
In brief
Player ratingsÁngel Alarcón beats them one at a time
SquadVictor Jensen falls out with a teammate over standards
Utrecht and Ajax Cape Town have settled on $11.8M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Real Murcia had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Every dressing room knows how to read a signing like this one. Abderahmane Soussi is not here to sit and wait indefinitely, and the man whose place he has been bought to take knows it better than anyone.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Zwolle have kept their man, and Utrecht go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Abderahmane Soussi is living that version at Utrecht, and it tends to show in the first month.
Vasilis Barkas 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.
Boardroom10 Aug 2026
2 academy players handed senior numbers at Utrecht
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.
Utrecht have gone to Ajax Cape Town 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.
The offer went to Al Dhafra 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
The phone has started ringing about Zidane Iqbal again, and this time the name on the line is TOP Oss. Utrecht are listening politely and promising nothing.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.