Ortwin De Wolf 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.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Keisuke Goto 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at KV Mechelen, and 11 appearances in 33 say he has earned the hearing.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around KV Kortrijk they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” KV Kortrijk have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Brecht Dejaegere has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Marko Ilić 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Calum Logan has just signed for KV Kortrijk, and for once the answer mattered.
19 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Mathis Servais and KV Mechelen agree another 4 years.
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.
Words at KV Mechelen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ortwin De Wolf 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at KV Mechelen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I did not go to Waasland-Beveren to sit and watch. I want to come back to KV Mechelen and fight for my place.” 1 appearances in 10 matches say the rest.
22 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. KV Mechelen lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Words at KV Mechelen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ortwin De Wolf 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at KV Mechelen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 22 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 31 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at KV Mechelen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.