NEC and the 5-0 Storm in Turin: The Mistake Isn't Bakker, It's the Forgotten Left Flank

I sat in a small beer bar on Zhongshan Road in Guangzhou, rewatching the Juventus - NEC footage for the fourth time in two days. Not to find the goals. But to find who ran into the space behind NEC's back line in the 23rd minute, when the score was still only 1-0. Nobody. That was the moment I knew: this team did not lose because Juventus were too strong. They lost because their left flank was as empty as a training pitch at 5 a.m. Don't be so quick to cover your ears when a grey-haired Japanese man — 64 years old, living in Guangzhou, having covered 8 World Cups — tells you that the Mitchel Bakker-to-NEC rumour is not a transfer story. It is the distress call of a coach with no one left to bring on. Let me slow down. NEC Nijmegen — a mid-tier Eredivisie club whose budget is a fraction of Ajax's or PSV's — had just been crushed 5-0 away in Turin. That is not a normal defeat. That is a match where the score was already 3-0 after 45 minutes. You understand what I mean: not the 85th minute, not a consolation goal in stoppage time. The first half. An entire half of football in which NEC's defence looked like wet tissue paper. Not long ago, I predicted Croatia would reach the 2026 World Cup final while the entire online community called me a delusional old man. Back then nobody believed in Croatia, except me and a few drinking buddies. But today's story has no such romance. Today's story is about an open wound on the left flank, and a Dutch newspaper trying to stick a plaster on it. Look at the bare facts. NEC's starting left-back — Almugera Kabar — is only 20, standing on a Turin-sized stage for the first time, and playing in a completely new system. He was heavily criticised in the press after the match. The two backups for that position — Deveron Fonville and Ahmetcan Kaplan — are both on the treatment table. Head coach Dick Schreuder said a line I had to write in my notebook: "Because I have nothing else." That is the sentence of a man who has run out of cards. Not tactics. Not calculation. Surrender. And so Mike Verweij, De Telegraaf's club watcher, went on Kick-off and dropped a line: "If you can pick him up for free, then... goodness, that could be interesting." Valentijn Driessen, the editor-in-chief, nodded in agreement. A transfer rumour was born. A name was placed on the table: Mitchel Bakker, 26, a left-back currently without a club after a mutual contract termination with Atalanta. Sounds good. Free. 26 years old. Has worn the shirts of Ajax, Leverkusen, Lille, Atalanta. But... hold on. Let me say the line my Góc Nóng podcast always says: this is not a transfer deal. This is a sigh from De Telegraaf, packaged as advice. At 64, I have covered 8 Olympics, 8 World Cups, countless editions of the Giro and the Tour de France. I learned one thing: rumours are wind, but I am old enough to know which way the wind blows. And this wind blows from Turin — where NEC were just crushed — not from the club's transfer war room. Young people look at transfermarkt; I look at a player's eyes when he walks onto the pitch. And the most important number in this story is not 5-0. Not 26, not the zero of the transfer fee. It is the number 1 — the number of matches Mitchel Bakker played for Atalanta last season. One match. An entire season. Let me put that number on the scale. A 26-year-old player — peak age — who has had genuinely brilliant spells. At Lille, he scored 4 goals and provided 3 assists in 35 matches. Those are the numbers of an attacking wing-back, not an ageing touchline-holder. On the evidence, Bakker is a genuine "value play": peak age, zero transfer fee. But. This is where my trade differs from the trade of the men who read Excel spreadsheets. The match NEC just lost was not a match they lost for lack of goals. They lost for lack of someone who knows how to hold the left flank. And you are proposing an attacking wing-back — a man born to surge forward, not to stand still — for a team that presses high and leaves space behind like an Eredivisie stadium leaves its ticket prices cheap. Re-read NEC's tactics. They "play with courage and press high." The source document itself admits they leave "huge spaces at the back." That is not a one-off error — it is a structural trade-off. When you push high without cover on the left, a quality opponent drives a knife into exactly that spot. Juventus did. And 3-0 at half-time was the logical consequence, not an accident. Now you want to bring in Bakker — an attacking player — for that position. It sounds sensible financially. But tactically, this is fighting fire with fire. Without a covering midfielder or a back three that shifts across when Bakker pushes up, he will widen the space behind him, not narrow it. This is what my analysis file grades as "medium confidence": an attacking wing-back in a high-press system is a double-edged sword. Not automatically bad. But certainly not automatically good. And the "bargain" label the press is sticking on it misses exactly the thing it most needs to see. Let me talk about that thing. Bakker ended his contract with Atalanta by "mutual consent." My file calls this a double-edged signal. It could mean both sides wanted a reset — good for NEC. It could also mean there was a fitness or attitude issue — bad for NEC. The file does not specify the reason. And when the file does not specify, a 64-year-old like me does not guess. I just write it down and wait. But here is what I will say: Bakker's fitness risk is the single biggest risk in this entire story. A player who has featured in just one match in the last six months is now expected to solve the crisis of a club that is losing men to injury. That is stacking risk on risk. Not a solution. A gamble. And there is another blind spot few people notice. This entire story — two journalists from one major newspaper appearing together, at the same time, with the same message — is about 90 percent "pundit advocacy" rather than transfer reporting. In my file it is clearly tagged: "Opinion," not "confirmed." Which means NEC may not have even picked up the phone. This matters more than it seems. Because in football there is a kind of spiral I have watched dozens of times: one heavy defeat, one panel show, two famous journalists placing the right name on the table, and public pressure forces the club to act — not out of football planning, but out of fear of being seen as doing nothing. I once said on Góc Nóng after Guangzhou Evergrande's 0-3 loss at Tianhe: sometimes a club signs a player not to get stronger, but to quiet the noise. And that is always the worst way to spend money. And what about that 20-year-old Kabar? He is being shot at from every direction by the press. His coach has just publicly told reporters he has no replacement. Correct professionally. But psychologically, that is pushing a kid into the storm and telling everyone he must take the hit. I am old enough to know how fragile a young player's belief is. Sometimes it does not break because of a goal conceded. It breaks because of one sentence. So this story does not end with Bakker. It ends with a question: does NEC dare to look straight at the problem? The problem is not "missing a left-back." The problem is that an entire left flank rests on one 20-year-old and two men on the treatment table — a margin as thin as paper. Signing Bakker could be a bargain. It could also be a plaster on a wound that needed stitches. What separates those two outcomes is not the transfer fee; it is the contract structure and whether NEC actually changes how it covers the left flank. If I had to bet — and at this age I only bet when I have three numbers as a fulcrum — I would bet on this scenario: Bakker will be linked. Not necessarily signed. If signed, look at the contract length. An end-of-season or performance-based deal is the move of a sober man. A three-year deal is the move of a drunk one. The storm may stop, the ball may roll slower, but we are still here. And here, in this room, there is one thing I want you to remember: when grey hair talks about football, don't rush to cover your ears — because the fire is still red. NEC's story is not over. But if they sign a player to soothe a newspaper instead of plugging the space behind Kabar, the next storm will come from that very left flank — and this time no Verweij will be there to shield them.