A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Westerlo will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Andrej Vasović did not need any: 7.79, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“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 The request is on a desk at Westerlo, and it is not being withdrawn.
At 20 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Andreas Jungdal, and the manager let it.
Squad25 Sep 2028
Words at Westerlo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pape Diong 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Westerlo can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Westerlo will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Serhiy Sydorchuk 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.
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.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 69 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Westerlo offered $1.3M; Sint-Truiden said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Westerlo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
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 Pape Diong is on it.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Westerlo will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Out, 0‑2 to Waasland-Beveren, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
He arrived for a fee and leaves for a fraction of it. $498.4K of what Westerlo paid for Hasan Jahić is money the club will not see again, and the boardroom will be asked about it for two seasons.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Hemsley Akpa-Chukwu has, at Westerlo, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 25 arrived, 24 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The offer went to Sint-Truiden this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Westerlo will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Westerlo have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Westerlo asked and Antwerp said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Leroy Abanda was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
9 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Brentford is saying, and nobody at Club Brugge is enjoying the guessing.
$46.3M on the table at West Ham United. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 18 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Club Brugge have lost him in all but the paperwork.
9 combined actions and 6.99. 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Westerlo will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Westerlo have gone to Seraing 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.
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.
A 1‑0 win over KAA Gent, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Words at Westerlo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jaïro Riedewald 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.
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Westerlo can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Leroy Abanda 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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Westerlo are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Westerlo know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Andrej Vasović arrived with a record at a bigger club than this one, and the room has treated him accordingly. The young ones watch him train; the senior ones watch to see whether it lasts.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Westerlo can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets3 Jul 2028
$270.0K settles it between the clubs for Hassane Bandé
KV Mechelen have accepted the money. What Westerlo do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Add another name to the list: Lommel have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Amando Lapage. The answer from Westerlo has not changed — yet.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jaïro Riedewald was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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; Westerlo are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Signed today, seen by nobody for years, and one of them may one day be the reason the club exists. That is the whole of the argument for an academy, and it is a good one.
23 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Westerlo lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Michée Ndembi was one of the reasons people came, and $1.0M does not replace that by itself.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Westerlo have done the hard part with Club Brugge, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Westerlo offered $290.0K; KV Mechelen said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Monterrey have kept their man, and Westerlo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
This is not rotation. Daniël Singh has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Westerlo is pretending otherwise.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Words at Westerlo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Leroy Abanda 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.
Club Brugge have gone to Standard Liege 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.
The deal with KV Mechelen is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
$7.2M on the table at River Plate. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Club Brugge offered $9.0M; Union SG said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
“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.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.15, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Steven Bergwijn is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
26 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
A 1‑0 win over Standard Liege, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Match17 May 2028
Andrej Vasović wins it after the whistle should have gone
105 minutes played. Andrej Vasović found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Standard Liege went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Squad22 May 2028
Getting past Yann Sommer has become the hardest job in the division
21 clean sheets and counting. Forwards used to back themselves here; now they shoot early, shoot wide, and look for somebody to blame.
10 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.
Score against anybody else and it is a goal. Score against them and it is a story with your name in it for a decade, and Club Brugge supporters have already started telling it.
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 Brugge this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Club Brugge ran out of time with Union SG. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
4 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
He is 20 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.
In brief
Loan watchNordin Jackers’s loan is measured in nothing happening
Club Brugge asked and Wrexham said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Club Brugge had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
$1.6M on the table at Racing Genk. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other 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.
Club Brugge have gone to Cercle Brugge 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.
$310.0K on the table at KV Kortrijk. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Add another name to the list: Racing Genk have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Hugo Siquet. The answer from Club Brugge has not changed — yet.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Yanis Musuayi obliged against Zulte Waregem. 2‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Club Brugge.
Two goals and a mark of 8.79 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
5 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.
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.
Joel Ordóñez 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.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.01, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
He is 20 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 8.54 — 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 injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 19 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
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.
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.
Sint-Truiden next, and one man in the Club Brugge dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
9 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Club Brugge that is a harder question to answer.
Nilton Varela 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Genki Haraguchi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Beerschot has been clear about where Xavier Gies stands, which is more than many ever get.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Arne Cassaert trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Beerschot have no good answer.
“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.
Yann Sommer and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad10 May 2027
Words at Club Brugge training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joel Ordóñez 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.
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.
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 Steven Bergwijn is on it.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Club Brugge, another week without a signature from Félix Lemaréchal.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Club Brugge that is a harder question to answer.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Beerschot have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beerschot this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Genki Haraguchi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Beerschot, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Mohamed Anas Haj signs something — a contract at Beerschot or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Joel Ordóñez 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 manager has re-ordered his thinking and Brandon Mechele has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
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.
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.
The language is coming and there is somebody to talk to in the dressing room. A footballer who feels at home plays like one, and it never shows up in a scouting report.
In brief
SquadJan Virgili is the talk of the training ground
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Beerschot have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beerschot this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Words at Beerschot training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Genki Haraguchi 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 paperwork is done long before the player is. Briek Morel has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Beerschot have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Beerschot will quote 18 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 90. Jong Genk had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
3‑3, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout12 Apr 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.” Charles Hazard chose the glass-half-full version of 3‑3; the supporters left with the other one.
In brief
The terracesThe spotlight tightens on Alfred Gomis
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Club Brugge have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Jakke Van Britsom had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Joel Ordóñez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“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 Brugge, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Dries Mertens has written the date down.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Club Brugge have no good answer.
5 goals in 10 games at Beerschot — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Club Brugge updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
57 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
Yann Sommer 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Club Brugge told Joaquin Seys something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
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.
“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.
The dugout22 Feb 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 1‑3 defeat, delivered by Youri Kompany to a room that had heard them before.
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 Hans Vanaken is on it.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Words at Club Brugge 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.
Successful dribbles: 12. 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.
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Beerschot lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
A mark of 8.11 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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beerschot this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Andrej Vasović. 3‑2 against RFC Liege, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mohamed Anas Haj was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Mohamed Anas Haj, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.67
A mark of 7.67 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.01 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Beerschot can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Beerschot have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Beerschot close the window on a squad of their own making
6 in and 3 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Sint-Truiden paid $970.0K and Beerschot took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Raúl Torrente 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.
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.
Beerschot asked and PAOK said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Beerschot can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from Hebar for Ensar Brahić was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Beerschot have done the hard part with Club Brugge, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Beerschot had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Slavia Prague, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beerschot this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Genki Haraguchi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Beerschot asked and Slavia Prague said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Al-Ittihad did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $22.7M for Steven Bergwijn, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Beerschot waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Club Brugge is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Steven Bergwijn is living that version at Club Brugge, and it tends to show in the first month.
Club Brugge have gone to KV Mechelen 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.
$780.0K was the most the club would pay and Waasland-Beveren were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Joel Ordóñez 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.