From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad7 Sep 2026
16 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Heerenveen lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market7 Sep 2026
“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 The request is on a desk at Heerenveen, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Ringo Meerveld 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.
Match5 Sep 2026
3 matches without a goal for Heerenveen
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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Dylan Vente gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Niklas Vesterlund 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.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Defensive actions: 17. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
15 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad31 Aug 2026
The words a physio says slowly. 24 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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market31 Aug 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Heerenveen can pretend not to have heard.
Market31 Aug 2026
Business is business: Levi Smans goes
Feyenoord paid $3.2M and Heerenveen took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Squad31 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Heerenveen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and Heerenveen 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Nolhan Courtens dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Match29 Aug 2026
Point won or two lost for Heerenveen?
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Vitesse? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Market31 Aug 2026
A season-long audition: Utrecht still own him, but the shirt and the minutes are Heerenveen's to give. A loan is a bet both clubs believe they are winning.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market24 Aug 2026
Feyenoord come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Heerenveen did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market24 Aug 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Ringo Meerveld 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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Luca Oyen 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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 16 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad17 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Heerenveen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Ringo Meerveld 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.
Match15 Aug 2026
It finished 2‑0, and it was Ringo Meerveld’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Heerenveen.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Marked 8.41 — 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Heerenveen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Amourricho van Axel Dongen 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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Defensive actions: 17, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
14 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Dylan Vente finally opens his account
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Heerenveen have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
Market17 Aug 2026
Robin Bouw is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Heerenveen has been clear about where Robin Bouw stands, which is more than many ever get.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ringo Meerveld and Heerenveen agree another 5 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Heerenveen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom10 Aug 2026
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Heerenveen
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Ringo Meerveld 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Denzel Strootman 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Daley Malen 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Andries Noppert and Heerenveen agree another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Marcus Linday 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Heerenveen have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Heerenveen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ringo Meerveld 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
24 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.
Market3 Aug 2026
Bram Rovers is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Heerenveen has been clear about where Bram Rovers stands, which is more than many ever get.