$820.0K on the table at Feyenoord. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $550.0K — a club that wants Tycho de Wit enough to be asked twice.
Willem II have gone to AZ 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.
Willem II offered $530.0K; De Graafschap said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
The phone has started ringing about Jens Mathijsen again, and this time the name on the line is PSIM. Willem II are listening politely and promising nothing.
Two goals and a mark of 8.68 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The offer from Falkenberg for Armin Ćulum 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.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $550.0K — a club that wants Louka Vanderbruggen enough to be asked twice.
Willem II had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at KAA Gent, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
The offer went to De Graafschap 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.
Calvin Twigt was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
He is 20 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Bas De Jong has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Guus Clasie 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. Patrick De Vrij 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 Dijks is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
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.
The offer from Stade Rennais for Thomas Didillon-Hödl 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Thomas Didillon-Hödl and Willem II agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Thomas Didillon-Hödl 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.
Willem II asked and Holstein Kiel said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“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 Willem II know it.
Still no offer on the table, and Vito van Crooij’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kasper Boogaard was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.