Marked for Ilan Hurtevent
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Apr 2027
Toby Alderweireld and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market5 Apr 2027
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Timothy Doku has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market5 Apr 2027
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Thomas Lukaku has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market5 Apr 2027
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Simon Castagne is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market5 Apr 2027
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Jason Onana has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Words at KV Kortrijk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gilles Ruyssen 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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
“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; KV Kortrijk are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. KV Kortrijk told Goduine Koyalipou something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Squad5 Apr 2027
KV Kortrijk will explain it as a decision about the team, and it may well be one. A dressing room has never once read it that way.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout22 Mar 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” KV Kortrijk may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gilles Ruyssen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
Liam De Smet gets it from the manager
“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.
Market22 Mar 2027
The name of Jordan Amavi keeps appearing in other people's back pages. KV Kortrijk say nothing, which says plenty.
Squad22 Mar 2027
A call-up flatters the player and the club that produced him in the same breath. KV Kortrijk would like him back in one piece and know they will not be consulted.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
“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 Kortrijk, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Sep 2026
A fracture rules Lennard Hens out for 92 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason KV Kortrijk will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market7 Sep 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what KV Kortrijk can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Window shuts: 2 in, 8 out at KV Kortrijk
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 2 arrived, 8 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
KV Kortrijk offered $120.0K; Racing Genk 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gilles Ruyssen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad7 Sep 2026
14 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Gilles Ruyssen, and the manager let it.
Squad7 Sep 2026
9 new faces, and KV Kortrijk 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.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
“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 Kortrijk, and both men came out saying it was fine.