Marked for Levi Haps
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad30 Nov 2026
“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 Antwerp know it.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Yuto Tsunashima 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.
Match28 Nov 2026
Standard Liege left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout30 Nov 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.
Match30 Nov 2026
The half-term report on Antwerp
Position 8, 20 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Jason Chadli after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Levi Haps 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.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad23 Nov 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 Antwerp this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad23 Nov 2026
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Antwerp can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Loan watch23 Nov 2026
“I watch every Antwerp game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Sanfrecce Hiroshima runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.68 on the card, and the Antwerp support went home talking about one name.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Jonás Ramalho
“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.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Jason Chadli after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Jonás Ramalho
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Match21 Nov 2026
Nil-nil, and few chances worth the name. Racing Genk came to defend and left with exactly what they came for.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words exchanged at Antwerp
Jason Denayer 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 Nov 2026
Words at Antwerp training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Levi Haps 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.
Looking ahead16 Nov 2026
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Dennis Praet’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Antwerp needing him to play as if none of it matters.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Jonás Ramalho knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Antwerp, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Vincent Janssen has written the date down.