Two goals and a mark of 8.86 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
15 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.
Bandar Mabkhout 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.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Hugo Cuypers 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Bandar Mabkhout. 2‑1 against Standard Liege, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Racing Genk have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Bandar Mabkhout 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.
Squad27 Dec 2027
Hugo Cuypers 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.
He has had enough of the noise. Whether Racing Genk 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.
“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 Racing Genk know 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 Racing Genk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Words at Racing Genk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hugo Cuypers 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 easiest signature of my career.” Riccardo Ilunga and Racing Genk agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“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 Racing Genk, and 3 appearances in 23 say he has earned the hearing.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against KV Kortrijk? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Daan Heymans signs something — a contract at Racing Genk or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
2 goals in 12 games at Waasland-Beveren — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Racing Genk updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
0‑1 away to the standard of Besiktas. Nobody will pretend this was a scandal; the gap is real, it is measurable, and closing it is a project rather than a team talk.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Racing Genk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Yaimar Medina and Racing Genk agree another 5 years.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Words at Racing Genk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hugo Cuypers 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.
Marked 8.04 — 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.
1‑1 against Besiktas, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Hugo Cuypers was at the centre of the description.
Matte Smets 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.
7 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Words at Racing Genk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hugo Cuypers 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Jeppe Erenbjerg will call it something else in private.
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.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Club Brugge kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Racing Genk will be asked about the last half hour all week.
Bandar Mabkhout 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Nikolas Sattlberger and Racing Genk agree another 5 years.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Hugo Cuypers 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Racing Genk know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Hugo Cuypers 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.
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.
2‑1 against HNK Gorica, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Konstantinos Karetsas did not need any: 7.63, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Racing Genk are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Bandar Mabkhout 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.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Hugo Cuypers 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.
“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 Racing Genk, and 1 appearances in 13 say he has earned the hearing.
At 19 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. Racing Genk will try very hard not to make too much of it.
The words a physio says slowly. 32 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.
Player ratings13 Sep 2027
Up for the corner, and Mujaid Sadick delivers — 7.72
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Mujaid Sadick scored, was marked 7.72, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Racing Genk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Words at Racing Genk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hugo Cuypers 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.
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.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
40 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Racing Genk lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Racing Genk have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
A 3‑1 win over Zulte Waregem, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings6 Sep 2027
Hugo Cuypers was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.10. 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 watch every Racing Genk game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at FC Augsburg runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The words a physio says slowly. 48 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.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Racing Genk scored in the 103th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ken Nkuba provided it, and the 8.88 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Racing Genk have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Hugo Cuypers 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.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 64 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Racing Genk have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Racing Genk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Words at Racing Genk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hugo Cuypers 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.
“I watch every Racing Genk game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Anderlecht runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Daan Heymans signs something — a contract at Racing Genk or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
81 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Racing Genk lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Racing Genk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Words at Racing Genk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hugo Cuypers 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.
At 23 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Leander Courtois and Racing Genk agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“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 Racing Genk, and 1 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Nobody at the club will say out loud who this signing is for, which is how you know exactly who it is for. Mohamed Koné has been brought in to take a shirt somebody is still wearing.
Hugo Cuypers 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.
At 25 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 4 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.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Bryan Heynen 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.
Position 2, 52 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Hugo Cuypers 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 35 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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 Racing Genk have had the benefit of it.
Junya Ito 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.
Standard Liege will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Marco Ilaimaharitra has pre-agreed a move to Racing Genk, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Adrián Palacios wants continental football; whether Racing Genk can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 67 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Racing Genk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 74 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Hugo Cuypers 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.
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Racing Genk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ibrahima Sory Bangoura 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.
“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 Racing Genk, and 4 appearances in 12 say he has earned the hearing.
Nobody at Racing Genk is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 83 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Junya Ito 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.03 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Hugo Cuypers 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Junya Ito. 1‑0 against Waasland-Beveren, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Racing Genk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ibrahima Sory Bangoura 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.
“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 Racing Genk, and 0 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Racing Genk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Jarne Steuckers has come out of that comparison in the side, and Racing Genk have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
7.42, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Racing Genk and Lokeren in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Racing Genk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Junya Ito 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Jeppe Erenbjerg was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.26. 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Racing Genk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Arno Van Keilegom and Racing Genk agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $8.7M has been paid because Hugo Cuypers is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
The name of Aaron Bibout has come up in conversations Racing Genk were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Mujaid Sadick 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.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
Racing Genk spend $8.7M on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $8.7M for Hugo Cuypers, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Junya Ito 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.
Zakaria El Ouahdi 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Racing Genk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Junya Ito 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.
He is 19, and nobody at Racing Genk signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
48 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
The offer from FC Nantes for Daan Heymans 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.
267 appearances across 11 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Hendrik Van Crombrugge and Racing Genk agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Racing Genk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.