Marked for Paris Irie
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match18 Dec 2027
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 ratings20 Dec 2027
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.36, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings20 Dec 2027
Tommy St. Jago was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.27. 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.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Paris Irie in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at KV Mechelen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout20 Dec 2027
Lois Onana: “That is the standard”
“That is what I want every week. Not the result, the way they went about it.” The manager, after 3‑0, already talking about the next one.
The dugout20 Dec 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad20 Dec 2027
José Marsà has to sit this one out
A booking nobody needed, on a night the game was already won. KV Mechelen lose a player for the most avoidable reason there is.
Squad20 Dec 2027
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Keano Vanrafelghem has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
The dugout20 Dec 2027
Mohamed Soumaré has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at KV Mechelen 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market2 Aug 2027
Antwerp come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and KV Mechelen did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
The dugout2 Aug 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” KV Mechelen may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market2 Aug 2027
Add another name to the list: Racing Genk have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Leo Fuhr Hjelde. The answer from KV Mechelen has not changed — yet.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Benito Raman 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.
Match31 Jul 2027
Whatever happens, KV Mechelen do not lose
6 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.
Transfer targets2 Aug 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Benfica have kept their man, and KV Mechelen go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market2 Aug 2027
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Match31 Jul 2027
It needed Myron van Brederode to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against RWDM, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout2 Aug 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Lois Onana chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad26 Apr 2027
Fredrik Hammar and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
The manager makes an example of Bilal Bafdili
“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 dugout26 Apr 2027
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Louis Yamaguchi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
The dugout22 Mar 2027
Leo Fuhr Hjelde: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” KV Mechelen have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market22 Mar 2027
Mauro Lenaerts has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around KV Mechelen they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Loan watch22 Mar 2027
30 appearances away from home and 9 goals to show for them. Every one of them makes next summer's conversation a little more expensive.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
Bilal Bafdili has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at KV Mechelen 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.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
Fredrik Hammar knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at KV Mechelen, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market22 Mar 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. KV Mechelen know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Market22 Mar 2027
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Massimo Decoene may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
The manager plants his flag on Bill Antonio
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Bill Antonio’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
Squad22 Mar 2027
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.