Marked for Ramiro Giannone
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match10 Oct 2026
No end in sight to Sint-Truiden's wait for a win
9 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Sint-Truiden has to find a result from somewhere.
Market12 Oct 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 Sint-Truiden can pretend not to have heard.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Shogo Taniguchi 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at Sint-Truiden training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Taiga Hata 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.
Match10 Oct 2026
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Sint-Truiden can tell you which week it ends in.
Match10 Oct 2026
0‑1 to Zulte Waregem, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad12 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Renê Júnior
“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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Keisuke Goto's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market5 Oct 2026
“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.
Match3 Oct 2026
8 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sint-Truiden this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ramiro Giannone is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Sint-Truiden training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ilias Sebaoui 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.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Defensive actions: 19. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“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 ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
15 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match19 Sep 2026
6 matches without a win for Sint-Truiden
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around Sint-Truiden are no longer polite ones.
Squad21 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sint-Truiden this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A move Ramiro Giannone would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Ramiro Giannone is living that version at Sint-Truiden, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Einar Galilea 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
KV Oostende left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad21 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Ilias Sebaoui
“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.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.81 on the card, and the Sint-Truiden support went home talking about one name.
The terraces21 Sep 2026
Everybody has an opinion about Leo Kokubo
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 12. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.