Massimo Decoene

Central Defender - KV Mechelen
17 Oct 2026
Saturday
Process

Marked for Massimo Decoene

5 Edition

The KV Mechelen Herald

31 Aug 2026
From our football correspondent Steady

Match

The cup run ends for KV Mechelen

1‑1 against OH Leuven, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.

Player ratings

Mathis Servais, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.73

A mark of 8.73 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.

Market

Eyes on Bouke Boersma again

The phone has started ringing about Bouke Boersma again, and this time the name on the line is Pacos de Ferreira. KV Mechelen are listening politely and promising nothing.

Squad

Tempers go at KV Mechelen

Jordan Amavi 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 terraces

The crowd has taken to Mathis Servais

At 21 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.

Player ratings

Nobody could get near Myron van Brederode

Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.

Player ratings

One of those days for Maksim Kireev

There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.35, and no argument anywhere in the ground.

Squad

Massimo Decoene 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.

Squad

No hiding place for Divock Origi

“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Divock Origi, and the manager let it.

In brief