“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 The request is on a desk at Club NXT, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Club NXT is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Club NXT this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Club NXT pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Club NXT they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“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 The request is on a desk at Club NXT, and it is not being withdrawn.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Marked 8.41 — 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Club NXT is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Club NXT can pretend not to have heard.
Add another name to the list: Lierse have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Lenn De Smet. The answer from Club NXT has not changed — yet.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Words at Club NXT training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sacha Marloye 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 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Sacha Marloye 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sacha Marloye was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Sem Audoor 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.
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 Sacha Marloye is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Lynnt Audoor trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Axl De Corte has his answer from Club NXT; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Axl De Corte’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Club NXT needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Club NXT can pretend not to have heard.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 12 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sacha Marloye was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Club NXT this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Alejandro Granados has come out of that comparison in the side, and Club NXT have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
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 Naïm Amengai.
Club Brugge asked and Besiktas said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Club Brugge will try again when the window opens; Charleroi may not be selling by then.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.95 for the rest of it.
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 Nordi Mukiele.
Pape Diong 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.
“I watch every Club Brugge game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at RFC Liege runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Nobody at Club Brugge will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Gustaf Nilsson’s exile
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Club Brugge can pretend not to have heard.
Club Brugge have gone to RWDM with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Club Brugge will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Club Brugge have gone to RWDM with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. RWDM have kept their man, and Club Brugge go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Club Brugge heard it as anything else.
15 seasons and 449 appearances, all of them here. Careers like this are not designed; they happen to a certain kind of man at a certain kind of club, and this town has one.
Position 3, 30 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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Club Brugge heard it as anything else.
Carlos Forbs 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.
11 combined actions and 7.15. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
15 combined actions and 6.91. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
A 3‑2 win over Club NXT, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Dylan Mertens 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at RFC Liege this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Marked 8.02 — 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.
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Bryan Van Hove 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.
Successful dribbles: 21. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Daan Dierckx 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.
1‑2 to Seraing, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout22 Nov 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Leander Fellaini to a room that had heard them before.
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.
1‑0 against Olympiacos, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Hans Vanaken was at the centre of the description.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Jan Virgili did not need any: 7.69, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.90 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 16 actions, 7.35, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daan Dierckx was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Bryan Van Hove 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.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Words at RFC Liege training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dylan Mertens 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 first defeat in 4 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Zulte Waregem; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
“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.
The dugout18 Oct 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Leander Fellaini left the room before anybody could ask which.
Successful dribbles: 14. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at RFC Liege, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Ken Nkuba’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and RFC Liege needing him to play as if none of it matters.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Lucas Da Cunha is living that version at Club Brugge, and it tends to show in the first month.
“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 Club Brugge hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Words at Club Brugge training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Antonio Blanco 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 fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Brandon Mechele, and the manager let it.
The dugout11 Oct 2027
Nordi Mukiele is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
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.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” RFC Liege have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Words at RFC Liege training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daan Dierckx 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.
Khalid Hachadi 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.
“I did not go to RAAL La Louviere to sit and watch. I want to come back to RFC Liege and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 14 matches say the rest.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Axl De Corte trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Kylian Hazard’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and RFC Liege needing him to play as if none of it matters.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Bryan Van Hove and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Words at RFC Liege training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daan Dierckx 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 1‑0 win over Olympic Charleroi, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 9 combined actions and a mark of 6.59, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
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.
Bryan Van Hove 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dylan Mertens was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A 2‑1 win over Waasland-Beveren, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” William Harhouz has his answer from RFC Liege; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Leander Fellaini could afford to be generous.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” RFC Liege have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Bryan Van Hove 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.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Daan Dierckx 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.
5 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.
Waasland-Beveren next, and one man in the RFC Liege dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at RFC Liege the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
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. 7.98, and 2 involvements.
Axl De Corte 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.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Daan Dierckx 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 watch every RFC Liege game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at RAAL La Louviere runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Eupen spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 36 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Club Brugge asked and Olympique de Marseille said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Nordi Mukiele has, at Club Brugge, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Deadline passes with 16 signed and 32 gone
That is the business done at Club Brugge until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
“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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
“I watch every Club Brugge game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at RFC Liege runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Club Brugge will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
“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.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Jan Virgili is the division's best young player this month
At 21 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. Club Brugge will try very hard not to make too much of it.
In brief
BoardroomThe Club Brugge board find $28.2M for the manager
The dugoutJan Virgili has become a man the manager trusts
RAAL La Louviere go through and RFC Liege go home, 0‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what RFC Liege can pretend not to have heard.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Zakaria Atteri provided it, and the 8.75 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The phone has started ringing about Khalid Hachadi again, and this time the name on the line is Westerlo. RFC Liege are listening politely and promising nothing.
“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; RFC Liege are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Bryan Van Hove 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.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Daan Dierckx 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: Zakaria Atteri. 3‑1 against Patro Eisden, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. RFC Liege will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“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 RFC Liege, 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 RFC Liege this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Daan Dierckx 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.
8 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.
RFC Liege have made the call to Club Brugge. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Momo Diaby trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Club NXT people have started saying his name in the past tense.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Club NXT, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Club NXT will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
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 Axl De Corte is on it.
Nicolò Tresoldi 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Mohammed Elbay is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Words at Club NXT training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tian Nai Koren 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Club NXT, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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 Axl De Corte is on it.
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.
Axl De Corte 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.
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 Argus Vanden Driessche is on it.