The clubs have shaken hands with Seraing; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
RAAL La Louviere wanted more than $4.5M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
He is going to Charleroi, the club has $1.9M 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 clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Anderlecht keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Viktor Boone and Waasland-Beveren agree another 3 years.
In brief
SquadSerxho Ujka falls out with a teammate over standards
Position 16 and 34 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Waasland-Beveren have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The clubs have shaken hands with Beerschot; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Waasland-Beveren have done the hard part with Racing Genk, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Anderlecht have kept their man, and Waasland-Beveren go back to a list with one name crossed off 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 Waasland-Beveren this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Waasland-Beveren will quote 16 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Squad18 Jun 2029
Serxho Ujka 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.
“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; Waasland-Beveren are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The words a physio says slowly. 47 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.
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.
Alouis Diriken 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 Kyan Vaesen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Guillaume De Schryver has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Waasland-Beveren, another week without a signature from Emmanuel Matuta.
Nobody at Waasland-Beveren 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 63 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.
Position 16 and 34 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kyan Vaesen 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; Waasland-Beveren are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Lennart Mertens trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout23 Apr 2029
The manager has not finished forgetting Amando Lapage'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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Waasland-Beveren they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Serxho Ujka 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 had been thinking. Kyan Vaesen 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 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 Waasland-Beveren know it.
A mark of 7.27, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
The dugout19 Feb 2029
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Charles Courtois was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Waasland-Beveren dressing room was either.
The dugout19 Feb 2029
The manager has not finished forgetting Amando Lapage'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.
74 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Waasland-Beveren lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
10 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.
“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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Waasland-Beveren this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kyan Vaesen 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.
Half the programme played, position 13, 19 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
“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 Waasland-Beveren know it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kyan Vaesen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Waasland-Beveren this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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 Waasland-Beveren know it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Dylan Dassy trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Louis Fortin’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
$8.3M is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Chris Lokesa had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
He is going to Antwerp, the club has $8.3M 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 clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Anderlecht keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Sergio Garcia is living that version at Waasland-Beveren, and it tends to show in the first month.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dante Rigo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Waasland-Beveren asked and RFC 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.