Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bamba Dieng was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Enzo Crivelli. 1‑0 against Zulte Waregem, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Belmin Dizdarević 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Mathias Fixelles will call it something else in private.
3‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
A brace, and Bamba Dieng takes the afternoon — 8.50
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Bamba Dieng provided it, and the 8.50 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
10 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Words at Standard Liege training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bamba Dieng is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Jordan Kadiri and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Yanis Dubois and Standard Liege agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Nacer Boyata on a 3‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
In brief
The dugoutArnaud Bodart has become a man the manager trusts
Standard Liege offered $2.5M; KV Mechelen 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.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Standard Liege hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Standard Liege will try again when the window opens; KV Mechelen may not be selling by then.
A 2‑1 win over Dender, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at Standard Liege training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohammed El Hankouri is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Standard Liege people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The fee is $2.2M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Antwerp drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
18 goals in 17 games at Den Bosch — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Standard Liege updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
The terraces25 Jan 2027
Standard Liege spend $2.2M on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $2.2M for Muhammadali O'rinboyev, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
9 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Bamba Dieng falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Add another name to the list: RFC Liege have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Belmin Dizdarević. The answer from Standard Liege has not changed — yet.
Crvena Zvezda and Bloemfontein Celtic have settled on $12.9M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Crvena Zvezda asked and Flamengo said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
$3.8M on the table at Al-Qadisiyah. 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 accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Bamba Dieng was one of the reasons people came, and $14.3M does not replace that by itself.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.39 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
The clubs have shaken hands with Patro Eisden; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
The offer went to Union SG 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.
Standard Liege offered $1.9M; KV Kortrijk 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 Marco Ilaimaharitra again, and this time the name on the line is Seraing. Standard Liege are listening politely and promising nothing.
In brief
The terracesStandard Liege spend $14.3M on the signing the town wanted
The offer went to Bloemfontein Celtic 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.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Crvena Zvezda had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
Crvena Zvezda asked and Vojvodina 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 want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Crvena Zvezda hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
The name of Rodrigão has come up in conversations Crvena Zvezda were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Minute 86, against OFK Beograd, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Marko Arnautović is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
The offer went to Crvena Zvezda 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.
The offer went to KV Kortrijk 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.
The offer went to Patro Eisden 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.
Enzo Crivelli and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
In brief
SquadYanis Dubois is a better footballer than he was
Two goals and a mark of 8.43 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Crvena Zvezda this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Crvena Zvezda, and 0 appearances in 15 say he has earned the hearing.
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Crvena Zvezda and Vojvodina in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Rodrigão wants continental football; whether Crvena Zvezda can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Marked 8.26 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
“I watch every Crvena Zvezda game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Ponferradina runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 13 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
0‑4. There is a level at which football is played every single week by clubs that have been doing it for fifty years, and an evening like this is what it feels like to arrive there without having done it.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.87 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Mohamed Abo Fani and Crvena Zvezda agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Vojvodina next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Mihailo Ristić was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.15. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Tomás Händel was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.07. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Crvena Zvezda can pretend not to have heard.
Two goals and a mark of 8.45 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Crvena Zvezda hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Timi Max Elšnik was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.44. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Miloš Kosanović and Crvena Zvezda agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Marko Arnautović had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Radnik Surdulica were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
36 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
Two goals and a mark of 8.88 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Miloš Kosanović and Crvena Zvezda agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
4‑0, and Bamba Dieng took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Crvena Zvezda tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
A brace, and Bamba Dieng takes the afternoon — 8.32
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Bamba Dieng provided it, and the 8.32 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.92 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. IMT tried to reorganise, Crvena Zvezda did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
“I watch every Crvena Zvezda game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Ponferradina runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 4‑0, Nenad Simic could afford to be generous.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
3‑6. Trabzonspor play this football every year and it showed in every part of the pitch. The lesson is expensive and, for a club at this stage, probably necessary.
Zeleznicar Pancevo will want this one forgotten quickly: 7‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Crvena Zvezda were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.23 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Two of the goals had his name somewhere on them, which is the afternoon a manager wants from anybody asked to both create and finish. 7.99, and 2 involvements.
7 goals in one match, Muhammed Cham on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Crvena Zvezda and Zeleznicar Pancevo.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Aleksandar Katai obliged against Loznica. 4‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Crvena Zvezda.
The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Jovan Trač did not need any: 8.02, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.20 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Two goals and a mark of 8.42 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Bamba Dieng wants continental football; whether Crvena Zvezda can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
At 26 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
He has had enough of the noise. Whether Crvena Zvezda can be a quieter place for him, or whether the only cure is a move somewhere the phone-ins are gentler, is a question for the next few months.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Nenad Simic could afford to be generous.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Crvena Zvezda, and 2 appearances in 6 say he has earned the hearing.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Rade Krunić is on it.
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Crvena Zvezda have no good answer.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Miloš Kosanović trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
0‑2 against Chelsea. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Mirko Ivanić.
The first defeat in 6 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against TSC; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad28 Sep 2026
16 new faces, and Crvena Zvezda are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Nemanja Radonjić is on it.
3‑0. Nights like this are why clubs spend decades trying to qualify for this competition, and they arrive perhaps twice in that time. Everybody who was in the ground will describe it badly for years.
Two goals and a mark of 8.53 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Two goals and a mark of 8.42 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Marko Arnautović and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Novi Pazar tried to reorganise, Crvena Zvezda did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Dinamo Moscow moved on, Bamba Dieng reports back to Crvena Zvezda, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Crvena Zvezda heard it as anything else.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Nenad Simic could afford to be generous.
Every signing waits for it and every press conference asks about it until it comes. It has come, Crvena Zvezda have their man off the mark, and the second one is always easier.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Crvena Zvezda people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Crvena Zvezda offered $3.4M; LASK 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.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Crvena Zvezda, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Crvena Zvezda close the window on a squad of their own making
2 in and 3 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Miloš Kosanović is living that version at Crvena Zvezda, and it tends to show in the first month.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Crvena Zvezda heard it as anything else.
Crvena Zvezda asked and TSC said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Miloš Veljković has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.76 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Mahmudu Bajo had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Cukaricki have kept their man, and Crvena Zvezda go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Albert Posiadała has, at Crvena Zvezda, and the first month will show what that does to a man.