The 5-0 in Turin: When the Coach Has Nothing Else

The 5-0 in Turin: When the Coach Has Nothing Else

The ninth minute, and everything cracks from there

The ninth minute. I still remember how I wrote that number into my notebook, with a worn-down pencil, under a desk lamp in Shanghai at nearly three in the morning. The ball came in from the right into the NEC Nijmegen box like a seam that had given way. There was no memorable collision. There was no save that made the crowd hold its breath. Only a young centre-back standing half a step out of line from the older man beside him, a goalkeeper hesitating half a beat between coming out and staying home, and a gap the size of a hand opening exactly where it needed to open. The ball settled calmly in the net. One-nil. The ninth minute.

I have watched thousands of matches, sat in the stands at Hongkou on freezing nights, and was once an academy player at Shenhua Shanghai before my cruciate ligament tore and ended everything. But there is a kind of goal I recognise instantly, even from a screen: it is the goal of a defence that was never assembled properly. It does not come from the opponent's brilliance. It comes from a gap that existed before the match began.

I put down my pen. A question repeated in my head that I knew I would have to write out: what makes a defence collapse within nine minutes? The technical answer is visible to everyone. But the real answer — the one behind the scoreline, behind the half-time result, behind the name read out at the press conference — does not lie in the ninth minute. It lies somewhere much earlier: in a recruitment decision, in a minutes policy, in the way a club builds its back line out of borrowed pieces.

The pitch never forgets, but it forgives. What it does not forgive is pretending everything is fine while somewhere a twenty-year-old defender carries a responsibility he was never prepared to carry.

Context: a Dutch club before the wall of Turin

NEC Nijmegen is a club from Nijmegen, a city in the east of the Netherlands, on the Waal river, a few dozen kilometres from the German border. On the map of Dutch football, NEC is not among the top. In a country where Ajax, PSV and Feyenoord divide most of the glory, and AZ, Twente or Utrecht fill the space behind, NEC sits in the middle — where a successful season means squeezing into a European place, and a failed season means returning to mid-table battles.

NEC's appearance in a European competition against a power like Juventus is a rare moment. For a club like this, such nights are not routine — they are the peak of an entire work cycle. And when you climb that peak, you usually climb it with a thin squad, because squad depth is something only big clubs can afford.

Juventus sits at the opposite pole. This is the club of Turin, Italy's most decorated team, a European champion, home across generations to some of the best players in the world. The gap between NEC and Juventus is not merely technical. It is a gap in budget, in squad depth, in the number of international-class players, and in the capacity to absorb mistakes. A big club can make three mistakes in a match and still win. A small club need only make one in the ninth minute to see the ending coming.

When a mid-tier Dutch club must travel to Turin for a European tie, the first thing people discuss is not tactics. It is survival. It is the question: can we stand firm, at least for the first forty-five minutes? That is why a young, short-handed defence becomes the centre of the tragedy — because when you have no alternative in the most crucial position, the class gap will find you on its own.

Turin is no place to learn a trade

The hardest possible rung for a club of NEC's profile is an away European tie against Juventus. This is the kind of match you must enter fully armed, because history shows that small clubs often lose not because the opponent is too good, but because they hand the opponent the right to finish the game early.

When the first half ended 3-0, I looked at the clock and asked what was happening. A heavy defeat can come from two sources: the opponent's superiority, or your own disorder. In NEC's case, the signs pointed to the second. Because a defence collapsing three times in forty-five minutes is not a matter of class. It is a matter of organisation. It is a matter of people standing next to each other without understanding each other.

The most frightening thing in football is not losing to someone better. It is losing to your own fragmentation. Juventus only had to be what they are: a machine that exploits mistakes. Against a patched-up defence, such a machine need not be creative. It only needs patience.

The collapse: a defence with collective amnesia

The first goal came from a simple long ball. Not a complicated combination. Not a rehearsed set-piece. Just a long ball, and a defence that did not understand one another. In my analysis I always distinguish two kinds of defensive error: errors created by the opponent, and errors of structure — a gap that exists because two players do not know who covers whom, because the goalkeeper and centre-back disagree about who goes and who stays. The ninth-minute goal was the second kind.

Coach Dick Schreuder said afterwards that he 'should still have headed that ball away' and that 'we simply do not have things right at the back'. Placed beside the action, that sentence tells a clear story. The problem was not an unlucky individual action. It was the coordination between goalkeeper and centre-back line — a matter of habit, of time spent playing together, of trust built over many matches rather than one training week.

The root cause lies deeper: two first-choice centre-backs, Bram Nuytinck and Perr Schuurs, were on minute restrictions of around twenty to twenty-five minutes. NEC's back line was therefore built not on its best players, but on those still able to run. Such a defence collapses the moment it meets real pressure. After each goal, the NEC defence did not argue. A defence still being assembled argues in order to understand each other. A defence that has understood it does not understand each other goes silent. And that silence on the pitch can be more frightening than any shout.

The anchor number: twenty to twenty-five minutes

In every article I allow myself one number as the central anchor. My number today is twenty to twenty-five minutes. That is the playing-time limit of two of NEC Nijmegen's first-choice centre-backs. It is not a tactical number. It is a medical one. A club may look strong on paper, with familiar names in the line-up, but if those names are capped at twenty-five minutes, its defence effectively exists only for the first twenty-five minutes.

With such a defence, the question is no longer 'can we beat Juventus' but 'can we survive the first half'. The answer was on the scoreboard. 43% is a shout; 21% is the truth whispering. But twenty-five minutes neither shouts nor whispers — it simply waits quietly for the moment no one wants to arrive.

The architecture of loss: a defence patched from borrowed pieces

I have been called an 'architect of loss', and I do not object. Loss, seen close enough, is not an event — it is a construction. It is built from many bricks: an injury, a failed transfer, a tight budget, a wrong decision, a club choosing to invest in development rather than signings. In Turin, that construction was brought into the light with all its layers visible.

First, the personnel shortfall: Bischoff injured, Nuytinck and Schuurs capped. At the centre, the budget squeeze: a mid-tier club without the money to buy another quality centre-back. And finally, a forced decision: starting a young loanee in the hardest competition of all. Three bricks. Three layers of cause. One complete structure for one complete tragedy.

A tactical machine always has a bolt named 'human being'. You can draw the most beautiful defensive scheme, but if that bolt does not fit, the machine will grind. That is what the tactics board can never show: behind every position is a body, and every body has limits.

Kabar, and the price of being borrowed too soon

The central figure of this story is Almugera Kabar: a young defender on loan from Borussia Dortmund. I stress 'loan', because it is the key to everything. One thing must be said clearly: Kabar did not cause the defeat. Kabar was passed through by the defeat. In the terms I use, this is an 'exposure'. A young player who should be developed gradually is brought into the light too early, and it is not the light of the training ground — it is the light of a European night against Juventus. When the light is too harsh, people do not see talent. They only see mistakes.

Here is what this means: a player who came to learn is placed in a position where he must teach. And when the one who has not yet learned must stand up and teach, injustice falls on both teacher and student. In 2026, at seventeen, I mispronounced the name of Luka Modric three times during a live commentary. Some names must be mispronounced three times before they belong to you. Belonging to a name is not about pronouncing it right. It is about understanding how much time its bearer needs to become himself. Kabar needed time. Football gave him none.

The financial model of the borrower of shirts

We are in a transfer window, and every tragedy on the pitch today was written by yesterday's financial decisions. The transfer window — a festival of promises with expiry dates. The Kabar loan is a development loan: financially light, usually with little or no loan fee and shared wages. For a club like NEC, that is ideal — a talented young player from a big club for little money. But every loan has a price. The player is not your asset, and all the sporting risk is yours.

If Kabar plays well, most of the added value belongs to Dortmund. If he plays badly, the wound belongs to NEC and to the player. That is the asymmetry of the loan model — one that small clubs can never avoid, because it is the price of playing on the big stage. The centre-back shortage is not an accident but a symptom of financial capacity. When Schreuder said 'I have nothing else', he was implicitly criticising the recruitment and the budget-holders. If a coach truly has no other option, that is not his fault. It is the fault of a system that decided defence is where you can save. In football, saving on defence is always the most expensive way to save.

The press conference: where one sentence weighs more than a defeat

After the 5-0, Schreuder faced the media. The pointed question was why he kept starting Kabar. His answer, in essence: because 'I have nothing else'. That sentence carries three layers. The sporting truth: NEC genuinely had no better option. The inner frustration: a manager saying 'I have nothing else' is voicing the bitterness of someone who asked and was not answered. And the deepest layer: a shifting of responsibility that, said publicly, places a young man in the position of the named.

A sentence at a press conference may be forgotten in seven days. But for the one it names, it stays much longer. I have been the named one. It is not like being told off on the training ground. It is like a verdict read out before people you must face the next day. The analysis calls this 'managerial-communication risk'. I call it an own goal off the pitch. A 5-0 defeat is painful enough. There is no need for a sentence that turns a loanee into a symbol of powerlessness.

Dortmund at the other end of the line

When a big club like Borussia Dortmund loans out a young player, the goal is to give him more competitive football so he grows. Loan contracts often specify expected minutes. The parent club understands: a young player sitting on the bench does not grow, and a young player overloaded in a harsh environment may not merely fail to grow — he may be permanently damaged. That is why Dortmund would watch this match with particular attention: not for the scoreline, but for what happened to their player. When you send a valuable item somewhere to be cared for, and hear the carer publicly say 'I do not know what else to do but put it out there', you begin to reconsider. This is what I call 'relational capital' — the invisible asset a mid-tier club accumulates in the transfer market. NEC needs clubs like Dortmund to trust it. If that reputation is damaged, the loss is not one match but future transfer windows.

The contrarian angle: the one thrown under the train is not the only one to pity

The media story is clear: a ruthless coach throws his young student under the wheels. A young player exposed. A victim. This narrative has emotional power, but it ignores an important truth: the coach is also on the tracks. Dick Schreuder did not say that sentence because he is cruel. He said it because he is powerless — trapped between a thin squad, a brutal schedule, and result pressure he cannot meet with the people he has. I am not defending him. I am analysing him. This is not a story of a villain and a victim. It is a story of a system that pushed two people into a place where neither could do right. Kabar was wrong only in not being ready. Schreuder was wrong only in not having enough players. Both are wrong only in one single thing: no one was senior enough to shield them. Kabar is the consequence, not the cause. What needs analysing is not one young player's fate but a club's failure to build depth. While the media chases a face, it leaves a structure behind. And that structure will keep causing similar wounds for years to come.

What we truly know, and what we are only told

I must pause to state what I always treat as a compulsory ritual: verification. In my profession there is a fatal mistake readers never forgive — drawing a strong conclusion from a weak source. I must be honest that some details in this Turin analysis need verification. Specifically, NEC Nijmegen's participation in a European tie against Juventus is atypical and should be checked against official competition records; several player–club associations also warrant verification. This is not trivial. In an age when any number can be manufactured, the ability to distinguish information from an echo becomes ever more precious. A good journalist is not the most persuasive writer, but the one who can say 'I am not sure'. Excessive certainty is often a sign of laziness. What I am sure of, without verification, is this: a young player was on the pitch in the mindset of someone not yet ready; a coach said what he thought in a moment of deadlock; and a system allowed it to happen. Those three facts are enough for me to write.

Transmission: from academy to market value

Football is a highly connected industry. A small event at a mid-tier club, placed correctly, can reflect something about a whole system. The chain has three links: supply (big clubs send young players on loan, small clubs receive them), use (mid-tier clubs deploy them when needed, sometimes earlier than they should), and result (a player's value and reputation are shaped by those minutes). In Kabar's case, all three links are under stress. An empty stadium is the audition of truth. But a European night in Turin is not an audition — it is the main performance, with no dress rehearsal. Kabar's story is the pattern of a type of player: the loanee, used too early, denied the right to make mistakes. I have met many such players. They do not fail for lack of talent. They fail because they are placed where they were never prepared to stand. After being exposed, they vanish from the radar — but they remain, playing in leagues no one follows, carrying a wound no one counts.

The risk picture

The greatest risk is the centre-back crisis — highest probability and impact, affecting both results and a young player's development. The second is exposing a young player too early, harming not only the present but the future. The third is a coach publicly criticising a player, creating a dual risk of morale and of relations with the parent club. But the most pressing short-term risk is Sunday's fixture. In football, defeat does not kill. Repeated defeat does. And when a coach has publicly criticised his squad after a heavy loss, he stakes his entire credibility on the next match. Notably, Schreuder himself expressed uncertainty over Perr Schuurs' availability for Sunday — a small detail that says much. It says that even the coach does not know who he will have at the back. Injury took me to the touchline, where words became my legs. It also taught me that in sport, risk does not lie in the big moments. It lies in the small gaps we choose not to see. NEC chose not to see the gap at centre-back for a long time. In Turin, the gap looked back.

Freezing the memory

I write this in a cafe in Shanghai, surrounded by a language I understand but do not belong to — a familiar feeling of living between two cultures, writing about a sport without borders. Perhaps that is why I always see football as a language rather than a scoreboard. What I want to keep from Turin is not the 5-0. I want to keep the ninth minute — the gap the size of a hand, the silence of a defence that did not understand itself, and the sentence of a coach with nothing else. And the pitch never forgets, but it forgives. It forgives slips, misplaced passes, nights of defeat. It does not forgive failing to learn from them. My question, not only for NEC but for anyone building a team: when you lack a human being, do you speak that truth aloud, or quietly fix the structure so you never have to say it again? For Almugera Kabar, I hope that one day, looking back on Turin, he will not remember the goals conceded. He will remember standing up. He will remember that sometimes, to belong to a name, it must be mispronounced several times first — and that the pitch, however harsh, always leaves a blank page for those who return.