Marked for Noë Dussenne
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad18 Jan 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Maxence Prévot
34 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. OH Leuven lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market18 Jan 2027
Club Brugge come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and OH Leuven did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Thibaud Verlinden 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.
Market18 Jan 2027
KV Mechelen are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. OH Leuven will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Match16 Jan 2027
Still nobody has beaten OH Leuven
The unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Mathieu Maertens 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.
Match16 Jan 2027
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Thibaud Verlinden. 2‑1 against Waasland-Beveren, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.04, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad4 Jan 2027
Maxence Prévot damages knee ligaments — 49 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 49 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason OH Leuven will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market4 Jan 2027
OH Leuven say no — this time
The offer from Club Brugge for Mathieu Maertens was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad4 Jan 2027
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and OH Leuven have had the benefit of it.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Thibaud Verlinden 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.
Market4 Jan 2027
The interest is real enough to have reached print. OH Leuven have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
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.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
15 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Defensive actions: 14, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad30 Nov 2026
Maxence Prévot damages knee ligaments — 88 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 88 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Tobe Leysen decides it from twelve yards
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Match25 Nov 2026
OH Leuven through in the cup
A 1‑1 win over Racing Genk, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason OH Leuven will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Mathieu Maertens 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.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match28 Nov 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Twelve yards, a goalkeeper guessing, and it still did not go in. He will take the next one, and every soul in the ground will hold their breath.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
A mark of 5.04 tells the story without any need for embellishment. He will want the tape of this one quietly lost.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match3 Oct 2026
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 ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad5 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at OH Leuven this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Noë Dussenne and OH Leuven agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at OH Leuven training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mathieu Maertens 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and OH Leuven know it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market17 Aug 2026
Racing Genk come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and OH Leuven did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad17 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at OH Leuven this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Thomas Delaine 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.
Match15 Aug 2026
Three points for OH Leuven, 2‑1 the final word against Zulte Waregem in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Thibault Vlietinck was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.20. 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 ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Óscar Gil dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Too much change too quickly at OH Leuven
6 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
There was no pressure on him and nowhere he had to be. OH Leuven lost a goal to a decision that took half a second and will be discussed all week.