6 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what PSV can pretend not to have heard.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Tygo Land did not need any: 8.05, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Player ratings1 Nov 2027
Up for the corner, and Adamo Nagalo delivers — 7.89
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Adamo Nagalo scored, was marked 7.89, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Jerdy Schouten 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 terraces1 Nov 2027
PSV supporters have found a favourite in Tygo Land
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Tygo Land 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.
3‑0. Nights like this are why clubs spend decades trying to qualify for this competition, and they arrive perhaps twice in that time. Everybody who was in the ground will describe it badly for years.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and PSV know it.
Two of the goals had his name somewhere on them, which is the afternoon a manager wants from anybody asked to both create and finish. 7.80, and 2 involvements.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Ruben van Bommel 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.08 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
7.57, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at PSV 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: Ruben van Bommel. 2‑0 against Zwolle, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.03 — 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.
Nobody at PSV 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 dugout18 Oct 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Arnaut De Ligt, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at PSV heard it as anything else.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at PSV can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at PSV this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at PSV 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 ambition story running backwards, and the one nobody tells: a footballer who wants a smaller ground, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is rarely reported as anything else.
“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 PSV will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
1‑3 against Universitatea Craiova, and an evening that measured the gap rather than the ninety minutes. Nothing about it was a disgrace and nothing about it was close.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at PSV 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 PSV this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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 PSV know it.
Barış Alper Yılmaz 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.
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.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. PSV know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
0‑1 against Borussia Dortmund. 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at PSV this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Erick Sánchez will call it something else in private.
“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 PSV, and 4 appearances in 14 say he has earned the hearing.
Nobody at PSV will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. PSV will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
“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 PSV hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Brynjólfur Willumsson is living that version at PSV, and it tends to show in the first month.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 4 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
7.91, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. PSV had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
The dugout13 Sep 2027
Ryan Flamingo is still being punished for one mistake
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.
Squad13 Sep 2027
8 new faces, and PSV are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“I watch every PSV game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at RKC Waalwijk runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. PSV have lost him in all but the paperwork.
PSV had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Panathinaikos, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what PSV can pretend not to have heard.
PSV ran out of time with Al Shaab. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Mats Wieffer has, at PSV, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Vitesse pay $9.8M, 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.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
PSV close the window on a squad of their own making
14 in and 23 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 PSV heard it as anything else.
PSV and Panathinaikos have settled on $19.0M. 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.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $29.5M has been paid because Erick Sánchez is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. PSV have lost him in all but the paperwork.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Erick Sánchez is living that version at PSV, and it tends to show in the first month.
SquadSergiño Dest falls out with a teammate over standards
56Edition
The PSV Chronicle
23 Aug 2027
From our football correspondentTriumph
Transfer targets23 Aug 2027
$29.5M settles it between the clubs for Erick Sánchez
Union Berlin have accepted the money. What PSV do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Liverpool paid $55.5M and PSV took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Mateo Retegui has gone, the accounts have $55.5M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.08 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at PSV can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Kodai Sano 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 want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at PSV heard it as anything else.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
PSV asked and Valencia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at PSV this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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 PSV know it.
The phone has started ringing about Fabian Merién again, and this time the name on the line is Cambuur. PSV are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Sergiño Dest 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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
9 new faces, and PSV are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
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 Guus Til is on it.
Business between these two is never simply business. PSV wanted Oussama Targhalline, Feyenoord did not want to sell to them of all clubs, and the signature at the end of it says who won that argument.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Oussama Targhalline has just signed for PSV, and for once the answer mattered.
“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; PSV are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation PSV are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
“I watch every PSV game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Dordrecht runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Feyenoord have accepted the money. What PSV do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
“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 PSV, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Persik had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Kiliann Sildillia 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.
Squad26 Jul 2027
Sergiño Dest 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.
“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 PSV, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
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 Ruben van Bommel is on it.
Jerdy Schouten was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergiño Dest 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 PSV, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Nobody at PSV 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at PSV, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ruben van Bommel signs something — a contract at PSV or anywhere else — this column belongs to 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 PSV can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at PSV this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sven Mijnans 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 Sergiño Dest trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
$11.9M was the most the club would pay and Twente were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
“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.
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.
28 appearances and 4 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.
8 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at PSV has been clear about where Paul Wanner stands, which is more than many ever get.
“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 PSV, and it is not being withdrawn.
38 appearances at RKC Waalwijk and the goals have stopped going in. PSV lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Sami Bouhoudane is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sergiño Dest was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Barış Alper Yılmaz 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 shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. PSV will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
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 Lutsharel Geertruida is on it.
The clubs have shaken hands with Twente; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
PSV offered $15.1M; Twente 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Barış Alper Yılmaz has, at PSV, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
“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 PSV know it.
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $43.1M for Barış Alper Yılmaz, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at PSV this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivan Perišić 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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. PSV have done the hard part with Galatasaray, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
The chase for Joshua Kitolano ended with $8.6M changing hands and Sparta Rotterdam out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
The offer from Salernitana for Sami Bouhoudane was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at PSV heard it as anything else.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Joshua Kitolano has, at PSV, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Jerdy Schouten 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 training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 8 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivan Perišić 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.
PSV offered $57.8M; Porto 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.
PSV have gone to Galatasaray 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Galatasaray have kept their man, and PSV go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Everything agreed with Sparta Rotterdam, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
“It was not 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.
“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 PSV, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” PSV have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at PSV 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 Ivan Perišić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
17 games away and 9 of them without conceding. PSV sent a goalkeeper out to find him some football and have been handed a selection problem instead: the man in possession of the shirt now has somebody behind him who has spent a season being picked.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at PSV can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
8 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Guus Til 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 Ivan Perišić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at PSV 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Mateo Retegui signs something — a contract at PSV or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at PSV, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. PSV will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
19 goals in 16 games at Willem II — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at PSV updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Jerdy Schouten 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.
Squad17 May 2027
Sergiño Dest 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.
Nobody at PSV 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.
17 appearances at Vitesse and the goals have stopped going in. PSV lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Guus Til is on it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jordy Bawuah 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.
16 appearances at Vitesse and the goals have stopped going in. PSV lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Guus Til signs something — a contract at PSV or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Two goals and a mark of 8.10 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
22 goals in 33 games at Dordrecht — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at PSV updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
17 goals in 14 games at Willem II — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at PSV updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivan Perišić 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ivan Perišić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 12 actions, 6.89, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
The dugout26 Apr 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 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Arnaut De Ligt to a room that had heard them before.
“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; PSV are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Jerdy Schouten was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
He is 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.
8.51. 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.
33 appearances at RKC Waalwijk and the goals have stopped going in. PSV lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every 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 PSV 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 Ivan Perišić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at PSV, another week without a signature from Sami Bouhoudane.
0‑3 to Heerenveen, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
Sami Bouhoudane, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 9.14
A mark of 9.14 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
At 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.
20 goals in 29 games at Dordrecht — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at PSV updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Everybody at PSV saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 38 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
14 goals in 10 games at Willem II — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at PSV updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Jerdy Schouten and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Nobody at PSV 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jordy Bawuah 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 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.
Position 4 on 57 points, and the places that carry a European ticket are close enough to count. Seasons like this are decided by two results in April, and the club knows which two.
7.90, 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ivan Perišić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 20 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.
0‑0 against Young Boys, 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.
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
15 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
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 7.66 for the rest of it.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at PSV heard it as anything else.
16 goals in 27 games at Dordrecht — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at PSV 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 Ivan Perišić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
14 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
“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 PSV hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
“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 PSV, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
The offer from Sandefjord for Mikkel Bro Hansen 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.
Jerdy Schouten 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.
Loan watch1 Mar 2027
Niek Schiks’s loan is measured in nothing happening
17 clean sheets from 28 appearances at RKC Waalwijk. 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 tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at PSV can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ivan Perišić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marked 6.90 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.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Tomoki Hayakawa: 4 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
2‑2 against Young Boys, 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.05 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
13 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Jerdy Schouten was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivan Perišić 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 know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” PSM had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at PSV can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
23 appearances at Dordrecht and the goals keep coming. PSV are watching this more closely than the borrowing club would like.
Loan watch15 Feb 2027
Niek Schiks’s loan is measured in nothing happening
15 clean sheets from 26 appearances at RKC Waalwijk. 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.
22 games, 7 goals, and a squad option that has arrived without a fee attached. The interesting question at PSV now is not whether he plays but who he displaces.
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.
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.
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 3‑0 against NAC Breda, and it could have been more.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
A brace, and Mateo Retegui takes the afternoon — 8.35
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mateo Retegui provided it, and the 8.35 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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 38 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 8.42, and nobody on the pitch better.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Seb Huntelaar, 17, plays like he has been here for years — 7.68
A mark of 7.68 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 17-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
12 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
1 for Jerdy Schouten, marked 7.77, 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.
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 1 signed and 6 gone
That is the business done at PSV until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
10 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at PSV can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sergiño Dest was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
PSV have gone to AC Milan 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.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Heracles kept coming because nothing stopped them, and PSV will be asked about the last half hour all 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 PSV, and it is not being withdrawn.
Involvement in 2 goals, from a player who spent the ninety minutes doing the thing a manager actually wants: being where the ball was going to end up. 7.91 beside his name.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at PSV this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. PSV will quote 16 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
22 appearances at RKC Waalwijk and the goals have stopped going in. PSV lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
Two goals and a mark of 9.41 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“It was not 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.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Heracles moved on, Armando Obispo reports back to PSV, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Stije Resink has just signed for PSV, and for once the answer mattered.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Roda waiting with a shirt. Nobody at PSV is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“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.
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.
$15.8M was the most the club would pay and Twente were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. PSV will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
The offer from Grenoble Foot 38 for Alassane Pléa 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.
Jerdy Schouten 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 17 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.
Add another name to the list: Heracles have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Sven Mijnans. The answer from PSV has not changed — yet.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.90 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Ivan Perišić 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 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.
Position 4, 36 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
Loan watch28 Dec 2026
Niek Schiks’s loan is measured in nothing happening
11 clean sheets from 18 appearances at RKC Waalwijk. 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.
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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.82 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Two goals and a mark of 8.44 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
He is 21 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.
Den Bosch held the lead for 1 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. PSV answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
1‑1 against Zenit, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Ruben van Bommel was at the centre of the description.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.87 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“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 PSV know it.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Sami Bouhoudane is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Guus Til provided it, and the 8.52 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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 PSV, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.91 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“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 PSV hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Kodai Sano and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad7 Dec 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Mateo Retegui
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Mateo Retegui has come out of that comparison in the side, and PSV have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at PSV can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at PSV this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Ruben van Bommel 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.
Minute 87, against Istra 1961, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at PSV this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
6 goals in one match, Mateo Retegui on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of PSV and Sparta Rotterdam.
Marked 9.91 — 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mateo Retegui. 4‑2 against Sparta Rotterdam, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Nobody at PSV 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Arnaut De Ligt on a 4‑2 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. PSV told Mateo Retegui something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Guus Til signs something — a contract at PSV or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Sven Mijnans’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and PSV needing him to play as if none of it matters.
1‑1 against KR, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Mateo Retegui was at the centre of the description.
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.
Ivan Perišić 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 PSV, and 2 appearances in 10 say he has earned the hearing.
A 2‑1 win over MVV Maastricht, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Seb Huntelaar, 17, plays like he has been here for years — 8.43
A mark of 8.43 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 17-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
He 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.
Ajax next, which means a week that starts on Monday. Everything else on this page will be forgotten by Saturday; this fixture will not be forgotten for a year.
“I watch every PSV game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Den Bosch runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
2‑0 against KR, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Mateo Retegui was at the centre of the description.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Ruben van Bommel 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.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Mateo Retegui was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.69. 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.
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
Squad26 Oct 2026
7 new faces, and PSV are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
He has had enough of the noise. Whether PSV can be a quieter place for him, or whether the only cure is a move somewhere the phone-ins are gentler, is a question for the next few months.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at PSV pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
“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 PSV know it.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Sami Bouhoudane is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Kodai Sano 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 dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Jerdy Schouten's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Arnaut De Ligt on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at PSV, and 2 appearances in 6 say he has earned the hearing.
Something was said to Sergiño Dest and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Guus Til’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Loan watch12 Oct 2026
Niek Schiks’s loan is measured in nothing happening
4 clean sheets from 7 appearances at RKC Waalwijk. 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.
0‑3. Zenit play this football every year and it showed in every part of the pitch. The lesson is expensive and, for a club at this stage, probably necessary.
Two goals and a mark of 8.75 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Jerdy Schouten 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 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Mateo Retegui 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.
“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; PSV are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Jerdy Schouten at his very best
BoardroomNobody left the PSV dressing room in a hurry
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at PSV this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 17 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 Mateo Retegui was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
7 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Nobody at PSV 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 dugout28 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Arnaut De Ligt was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the PSV dressing room was either.
3‑1 against Istra 1961, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Mateo Retegui was at the centre of the description.
Going 2 down does something to a side, and what it usually does is finish them. Not here. PSV rebuilt the afternoon goal by goal, and AZ had no answer to any of it.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
A brace, and Mateo Retegui takes the afternoon — 8.93
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mateo Retegui provided it, and the 8.93 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jerdy Schouten provided it, and the 8.31 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at PSV this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Wassim Bouziane is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
“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 PSV, and it is not being withdrawn.
Jerdy Schouten 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 18 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mateo Retegui was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what PSV can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
PSV close the window on a squad of their own making
3 in and 9 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 PSV hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
The offer from Sparta Rotterdam for Sami Bouhoudane 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ivan Perišić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Mateo Retegui
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Mateo Retegui has come out of that comparison in the side, and PSV have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
Heracles next, and one man in the PSV dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at PSV, and it is not being withdrawn.
Kodai Sano 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 training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 5 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
7 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Arnaut De Ligt after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
PSV offered $19.8M; Kashiwa Reysol 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.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $7.6M has been paid because Tomoki Hayakawa is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Sami Bouhoudane had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Tomoki Hayakawa is living that version at PSV, and it tends to show in the first month.
The offer from Almere City for Liam van Nistelrooij 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.
In brief
SquadIvan Perišić falls out with a teammate over standards
PSV and Kashiwa Reysol have settled on $19.8M. 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.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $46.2M has been paid because Mateo Retegui is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
Everything agreed with Kashima Antlers, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Mateo Retegui is living that version at PSV, and it tends to show in the first month.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
A brace, and Mateo Retegui takes the afternoon — 8.28
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mateo Retegui provided it, and the 8.28 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The offer went to Al-Qadisiyah 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.
$26.3M on the table at Al-Hilal. 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 deal with AZ is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
The offer from Sparta Rotterdam for Ruben van Bommel was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at PSV heard it as anything else.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $2.5M — a club that wants Kiyani Zeggen 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 PSV this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at PSV heard it as anything else.
Jerdy Schouten 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 phone has started ringing about Tijn Smolenaars again, and this time the name on the line is Borneo. PSV are listening politely and promising nothing.
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.
In brief
The dugoutJerdy Schouten asks for a word with the manager