ADO Boss Peter Addresses Training Leak Ahead of Groningen Match
Peter should have been talking only about football this week. About noise, nerves and a long-awaited Eredivisie home game. Instead, the ADO head coach has been forced to close training sessions and deal with a leak from inside his own camp.
Team information from an open session appeared online almost immediately, and the coach’s patience snapped.
“I don't know who it was, but in any case someone, or a few people, posted information online immediately,” he told Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad. “That makes keeping training sessions open completely pointless for us.”
The decision was swift. Doors shut, access revoked, tactical work now strictly behind closed gates.
“I have no idea if this happened last year as well, but this time I knew it was posted online straight away,” Peter explained. “We want everyone to be able to come and watch training, but that information has to stay inside the complex. That didn't happen, so we have to close the doors.”
It is a hard line, but for a coach preparing for the club’s first Eredivisie home fixture in five years, the margins feel too fine to ignore. Every detail matters. Every hint of a line-up, every tweak in shape.
Leak or no leak, the match itself is sizeable. On Sunday afternoon, in front of a sold-out crowd, ADO welcome FC Groningen on matchday two of the 2026-27 Eredivisie season. The hosts are still hunting their first points after a 2-0 defeat to AZ on the opening weekend, when second-half goals from Ro-Zangelo Daal and Calvin Stengs decided the game.
That result stung. ADO stayed in the contest for long spells, only to be punished after the break. Now they walk into another demanding assignment against a Groningen side already carrying momentum after edging past FC Utrecht in their curtain-raiser.
Peter, though, is not expecting any surprises from the visitors. He wants the game to be decided in the open, not in the shadows of leaked tactics.
“I don't expect any surprises and I'm hoping for an open game played at high intensity by both teams,” he said, setting out his vision for what the sold-out crowd should see.
The squad list underlines the tightrope ADO are on. Jalen Hawkins is still sidelined with a hamstring problem, while Cameron Peupion remains a long-term absentee after knee surgery. Two attacking options gone, two reshuffles already baked into every plan.
There is some relief at the back. Goalkeeper Niclas Thiede has returned to full training after an ankle injury and could reclaim his place between the posts, restoring a little stability in a key position.
New blood may also play a part. Cagliari loanee Othniel Raterink is building match fitness and is expected to start on the bench, an option for Peter if the game opens up or legs tire late on.
So the scene is set: a sold-out stadium, a club back on the Eredivisie stage at home after five long years, a coach angry enough to shut the gates yet calm enough to demand an “open game”, and an in-form Groningen side intent on spoiling the party.
For ADO, the question is blunt. Does this week’s turbulence harden them for a statement performance, or does an early-season leak foreshadow a campaign played permanently on the back foot?
