Marked for Tomás Mendes
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market28 Aug 2028
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Match26 Aug 2028
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.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Adrien Julloux 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.
Match26 Aug 2028
5 matches, two or more conceded in every one of them. Sides that create as much as this can live with it for a while. Nobody lives with it forever.
Player ratings28 Aug 2028
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Words at Waasland-Beveren training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lennart 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.
Match26 Aug 2028
0‑2 to Charleroi, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad28 Aug 2028
The manager makes an example of Romaric Yapi
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom31 Jul 2028
Pressure builds in the Waasland-Beveren boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Market31 Jul 2028
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market31 Jul 2028
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Rostyslav Taranukha will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Waasland-Beveren the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Noah Mawete Kinsiona is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Maxim Deman 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 Waasland-Beveren this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom31 Jul 2028
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Waasland-Beveren
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Match29 Jul 2028
Club Brugge left with the points after a 2‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Andrea Cistana 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.
The terraces31 Jul 2028
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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces10 Jul 2028
Anger at Waasland-Beveren spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Viktor Boone breaks a bone — 27 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 27 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Ferre Slegers is a better footballer than he was
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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad19 Jun 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Tibe S'Jongers
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Waasland-Beveren lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad19 Jun 2028
A fracture rules Viktor Boone out for 49 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Waasland-Beveren will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market19 Jun 2028
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad22 May 2028
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Waasland-Beveren may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market22 May 2028
Tomás Mendes hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Waasland-Beveren can pretend not to have heard.
Squad22 May 2028
Hugo Siquet 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market24 Apr 2028
“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 Waasland-Beveren, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Andrea Cistana 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.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Hyllarion Goore 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match13 Mar 2028
22 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Market13 Mar 2028
Tomás Mendes hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Waasland-Beveren can pretend not to have heard.
Market13 Mar 2028
Only the photograph left for Pape Paye
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Pape Paye will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Waasland-Beveren the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Hugo Siquet 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 Mar 2028
José Cristiano gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. José Cristiano has just signed for Waasland-Beveren, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Andrea Cistana 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match17 Jan 2028
Every point is an argument now for Waasland-Beveren
Position 16 and 15 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Match15 Jan 2028
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.
Market17 Jan 2028
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad17 Jan 2028
A muscle injury sidelines Christian Brüls for 21 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Waasland-Beveren will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Tomás Mendes gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Tomás Mendes has just signed for Waasland-Beveren, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Andrea Cistana 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.
The terraces17 Jan 2028
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.
Squad17 Jan 2028
“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.
Player ratings17 Jan 2028
Ninety minutes of Chris Lokesa at his very best
Marked 8.29. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Waasland-Beveren.