It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cádiz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 Cádiz, and 15 appearances in 19 say he has earned the hearing.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. KV Mechelen moved on, Tobe Leysen reports back to OH Leuven, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
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.
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.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad14 Sep 2026
9 new faces, and OH Leuven 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.
24 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what OH Leuven can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at OH Leuven training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tobe Leysen 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Dani van den Heuvel has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Vicente Guaita 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Damián 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 shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
“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 OH Leuven, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
Squad24 Aug 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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
321 appearances across 8 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.
“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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cádiz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Suso 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.