The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Hüseyin Ertürk was one of the reasons people came, and $1.1M does not replace that by itself.
The offer went to Racing Genk 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 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 Fadel Gobitaka enough to be asked twice.
Waasland-Beveren asked and Standard Liege said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Philipp Schulz 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.
19 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Waasland-Beveren lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Waasland-Beveren can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
“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 The request is on a desk at Waasland-Beveren, and it is not being withdrawn.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Aimé Omgba was one of the reasons people came, and $13.7M does not replace that by itself.
Add another name to the list: Westerlo have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Hüseyin Ertürk. The answer from Waasland-Beveren has not changed — yet.
Waasland-Beveren offered $210.0K; 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.
KV Mechelen will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Damien Mouchamps has pre-agreed a move to Waasland-Beveren, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Seraing heard it as anything else.
Noah Solheid 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 Marco Kana was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. KAA Gent have kept their man, and Seraing go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“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; Seraing are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
A loan enquiry to Francs Borains: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Marco Kana trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Seraing have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad29 May 2028
Marco Kana 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Seraing this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 36, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
“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 Seraing, and it is not being withdrawn.
A mark of 7.76 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Seraing 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 Marco Kana was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Henry Lawrence 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.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Words at Seraing training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marco Kana 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 watch every Seraing game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at RWDM runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 10 combined actions and a mark of 7.09, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Seraing know it.
7 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
A mark of 7.73 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.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Simon Buggea scored, and precious little else went right: 2‑3 to Cercle Brugge, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Marco Kana 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.
Seraing asked and Union SG 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 words a physio says slowly. 20 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Marco Kana 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; Seraing are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
7.99, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Seraing had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
The dugout13 Dec 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Thorgan Tielemans left the room before anybody could ask which.
Henry Lawrence 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.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Words at Seraing training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marco Kana 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.
“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; Seraing are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Francs Borains in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Lucas Vankerkhoven trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Seraing have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Henry Lawrence 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.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Words at Seraing training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marco Kana 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 name of Wassim Bahri has come up in conversations Seraing were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Seraing can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The clubs have shaken hands with Club Brugge; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Seraing can pretend not to have heard.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Charleroi have kept their man, and Seraing go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The name of Thierno Gaye has come up in conversations Seraing were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Words at Seraing training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Noah Solheid 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.
Thierno Gaye 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.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Racing Genk is saying, and nobody at Seraing is enjoying the guessing.
The chase for Marco Kana ended with $2.9M changing hands and Anderlecht out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Seraing can pretend not to have heard.
$780.0K was the most the club would pay and Charleroi 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Seraing this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marco Kana was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $2.9M. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sander Coopman was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Seraing will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
“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 Deportes Tolima, and it is not being withdrawn.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Deportes Tolima have lost him in all but the paperwork.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Deportes Tolima have had the benefit of it.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Yoimar Moreno has agreed terms with Cortulua for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jorge Cabezas Hurtado 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 demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Jeinner Fuentes is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.