About Sano it sounds after a week of extremes: “Next week, friends again.”

Kodai Sano was presented as PSV’s new acquisition after some delay over the weekend. The Japanese neo-international can play as a six, eight, but also as a 10 or on the right wing.

PSV is getting a versatile player, but it didn’t come without a fight. In Nijmegen, they still have to recover from the shock, but Sano is, at least, fully behind the step that brought him to PSV. For Dick Schreuder, the head coach of NEC, it all went quite differently. It started with a text message from Kodai Sano, who, considering the approaching agreement between PSV and NEC, no longer had any desire to keep playing for NEC.

'Sometimes you can already feel things coming, for example last night late and this morning. Will he call or message me? He asked if we could sit down; we did, and I quickly got straight to business. It was a bit frustrating, but if a player really doesn’t want to play, I’m not someone who has to convince him,' says Schreuder in a retrospective.

Sano broke the agreement with NEC to still play both matches against Olympiakos, as Schreuder said. 'Kodai did not take part in the first friendlies because he was close to a transfer to Hoffenheim. When that didn’t happen, it was discussed with him to start playing friendlies again and to keep doing so at least until the home match against Olympiakos. That’s why I started him again in the starting lineup, so that we would begin this match well prepared.'

It went differently. Sano didn’t feel good about it and let Schreuder know. 'When it turned out he didn’t want to play, I asked him to leave the hotel. I wanted the team to focus on Olympiakos and not on him. In a week, we’ll all be friends again and everything will be fun and nice; today was just a difficult moment. In the end, Kodai accepted that decision. He finds something, but then we also find something.'

Of course Schreuder was not exactly happy with how things went regarding Sano and the decisions of the Japanese player himself, but in the meantime everything is calm again around Schreuder and NEC.

'Disappointment often goes away quickly too. I always understand everything, but sometimes also not. Kodai is the first and the last who granted us the victory. He just sent me, right before kickoff, a really lovely message—that’s telling. I think he had a lot of trouble with it today.'