The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Roda have lost him in all but the paperwork.
8 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.
8 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Roda can tell you which week it ends in.
“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 The request is on a desk at Roda, and it is not being withdrawn.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Toni Jonker has, at Roda, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Jérôme Déom 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.
De Graafschap will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Timo Jansen has pre-agreed a move to Roda, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Clermont Foot have kept their man, and Roda go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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. 7 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Roda have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 1 signed and 1 gone
That is the business done at Roda 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Roda, and it is not being withdrawn.
The words a physio says slowly. 17 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and AZ waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Roda is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Roda, and it is not being withdrawn.
6 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Andrew Imade 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.
Dario Van Den Buijs 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. Jérôme Déom 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.
Roda asked and Altach said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Roda lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Position 18 and 7 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Roda can pretend not to have heard.
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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Roda is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Roda 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 Jérôme Déom was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
33 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Roda lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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 Roda, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at AS Roma is saying, and nobody at Roda is enjoying the guessing.
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Marked 7.08 on 14 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jorrit Smeets was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
40 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Roda lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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 Roda, and it is not being withdrawn.
Dario Van Den Buijs 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Jérôme Déom 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.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Roda can pretend not to have heard.
Dario Van Den Buijs 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Jérôme Déom falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“The 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.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Roda, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Successful dribbles: 13. 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 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Roda this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Jorrit Smeets falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑3 Marco Van Dijk left the room before anybody could ask which.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 94th minute. De Graafschap will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jérôme Déom is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Successful dribbles: 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.
At 18 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Roda can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Dario Van Den Buijs 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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Jérôme Déom 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.
Dario Van Den Buijs 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. Jorrit Smeets 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 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.
In brief
The dugoutJérôme Déom knocks on the manager’s door
“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 Roda, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Roda this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jérôme Déom 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 14 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“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 Roda, and it is not being withdrawn.
Marked 7.76. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes itself.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Roda and PSV in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Jérôme Déom 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.
9 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.
Dario Van Den Buijs 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Jorrit Smeets 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 makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Roda will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
The run now stands at 8, and the questions being asked around Roda are no longer polite ones.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Fynn Schenten, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.87
A mark of 7.87 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.
Dario Van Den Buijs 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 Jérôme Déom was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Squad2 Nov 2026
5 new faces, and Roda 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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
“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 Roda, and it is not being withdrawn.
6 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Roda can tell you which week it ends in.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Roda this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Mika Peters is a Roda player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Mika Peters is living that version at Roda, and it tends to show in the first month.
In brief
SquadWords at Roda training over how hard people work
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.
5 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Dario Van Den Buijs and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Jorrit Smeets 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.
5 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Justin Treichel is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Dario Van Den Buijs and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jorrit Smeets 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.
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.
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.
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.
Dario Van Den Buijs 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Roda and Twente, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jérôme Déom 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 chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier 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 Roda 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 Jorrit Smeets was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad28 Sep 2026
8 new faces, and Roda 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.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Nobody at Roda 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.
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.
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.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Lucas Beerten falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Marco Van Dijk to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Cain Seedorf
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
The words a physio says slowly. 15 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Andrew Imade obliged against Cambuur. 2‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Roda.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Sami Bouhoudane, 18, plays like he has been here for years — 7.88
A mark of 7.88 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Dario Van Den Buijs and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jorrit Smeets is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
At 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.
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.
23 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Roda lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 10 arrived, 9 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at St. Pauli is saying, and nobody at Roda is enjoying the guessing.
Dario Van Den Buijs 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. Jorrit Smeets is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 18-year-old it feels ownership of. Sami Bouhoudane 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.
32 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Roda lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Everything agreed with St. Pauli, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Roda this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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 dugout31 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Marco Van Dijk left the room before anybody could ask which.
6 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.
In brief
SquadWords at Roda training over how hard people work
39 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Roda lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
$1.6M was the most the club would pay and PSV 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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Roda and Ajax in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Jorrit Smeets 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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Roda are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
46 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Roda lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Roda have gone to PSV 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 from Vitesse for Zakarya Khaldi 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.
Dario Van Den Buijs 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. Porto have kept their man, and Roda go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Lucas Beerten 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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Roda this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Jasper Promes is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Jordy Babel 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. Denzel Timber is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Tim Janssen has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Nothing about this will be in a press release. A plan went upstairs, came back rejected, and the version of the club that would have existed in three years' time just quietly stopped being possible.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Roda, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Dario Van Den Buijs 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Lucas Beerten 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.
Still no offer on the table, and Dario Van Den Buijs’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Squad3 Aug 2026
7 new faces, and Roda 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.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Geovanni Vianney is in the works
The dugoutJérôme Déom knocks on the manager’s door