Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Félix Lemaréchal is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
Standard Liege next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Hugo Vetlesen was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.24. 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.
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
The dugoutFélix Lemaréchal is still being punished for one mistake
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 12 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Anderlecht and KV Mechelen have settled on $2.5M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
The name of Adriano Bertaccini has come up in conversations Anderlecht were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The offer went to Charleroi 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.
The offer from Mouscron for Ali Maamar 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.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.0M — a club that wants Mohamed Koné enough to be asked twice.
$970.0K was the most the club would pay and KAA Gent 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.
The deal with Al-Nassr 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Besiktas have kept their man, and Club Brugge go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Two goals and a mark of 8.33 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Mohammed El Âdfaoui is living that version at Club Brugge, and it tends to show in the first month.
3 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Jan Virgili 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Paris Saint-Germain have kept their man, and KAA Gent go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
He is going to Heerenveen, the club has $4.8M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
The chase for Eden Tielemans ended with $2.7M changing hands and KV Oostende out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.85 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
KAA Gent offered $1.9M; Westerlo 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Maximiliano Caufriez has, at KAA Gent, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Aimé Omgba 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.
Successful dribbles: 34. 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.
Anderlecht asked and Galatasaray 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 offer went to OH Leuven 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.
Anderlecht have gone to KAA Gent 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.
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 Anderlecht supporters have already started telling it.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $3.1M — a club that wants Kyan Vaesen enough to be asked twice.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. KV Oostende have kept their man, and Club Brugge go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Club Brugge and KAA Gent have settled on $910.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Nicolò Tresoldi, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.78
A mark of 7.78 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.
“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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Hicham El Majhed is living that version at Club Brugge, and it tends to show in the first month.
Marked 7.29 on 10 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
$12.5M on the table at Galatasaray. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
KAA Gent offered $11.8M; Al-Nassr 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 right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Everything agreed with KV Oostende, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
KAA Gent asked and Köln 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 number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $2.1M — a club that wants Pape Diong enough to be asked twice.
Davy Roef 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.
In brief
The terracesKAA Gent supporters have found a favourite in Max Dean