Marked for Boubacar Diallo
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom2 Oct 2034
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Squad2 Oct 2034
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Charleroi will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Boardroom2 Oct 2034
Pressure builds in the Charleroi boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad2 Oct 2034
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad2 Oct 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Charleroi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Oct 2034
Words at Charleroi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aiham Ousou 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.
Boardroom2 Oct 2034
Charleroi pull $1.7M back off the table
The money that was there in the summer is not there now. Nobody upstairs calls this a change of ambition, and everybody downstairs reads it as one.
Player ratings2 Oct 2034
A mark of 5.56 tells the story without any need for embellishment. He will want the tape of this one quietly lost.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad11 Sep 2034
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Charleroi will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match9 Sep 2034
Landry Sergeant wins it after the whistle should have gone
90 minutes played. Landry Sergeant found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Sint-Truiden went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Market11 Sep 2034
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Boubacar Diallo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Charleroi the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Boardroom11 Sep 2034
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Petar Marković has agreed terms with Lokeren for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad11 Sep 2034
Yacine Titraoui 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.
Squad11 Sep 2034
Aiham Ousou 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.
Squad11 Sep 2034
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Antoine Colassin, and the manager let it.
Match9 Sep 2034
Sint-Truiden made Charleroi work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings11 Sep 2034
Stefan Ulmer was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.03. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Aug 2034
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Charleroi will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings28 Aug 2034
A brace, and Stefan Ulmer takes the afternoon — 9.03
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Stefan Ulmer provided it, and the 9.03 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market28 Aug 2034
Westerlo come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Charleroi did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad28 Aug 2034
Yacine Titraoui 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.
Squad28 Aug 2034
Aiham Ousou 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.
Market28 Aug 2034
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Charleroi heard it as anything else.
Squad28 Aug 2034
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Aiham Ousou, and the manager let it.
Match26 Aug 2034
A 2‑1 win over Waasland-Beveren, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The terraces28 Aug 2034
At 18 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad14 Aug 2034
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 75 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad14 Aug 2034
Boubacar Diallo: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Charleroi have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market14 Aug 2034
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Match12 Aug 2034
The wait goes on for Charleroi
5 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.
Player ratings14 Aug 2034
7.60, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Squad14 Aug 2034
Yacine Titraoui 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 Aug 2034
Words at Charleroi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Antoine Colassin 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.
Boardroom14 Aug 2034
Wages eat 103% of everything Charleroi earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Market14 Aug 2034
No place for João Forelle in the plan
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” João Forelle has his answer from Charleroi; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom7 Aug 2034
Pressure builds in the Charleroi boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
The terraces7 Aug 2034
Anger at Charleroi spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Squad7 Aug 2034
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 82 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad7 Aug 2034
89 appearances across 10 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Player ratings7 Aug 2034
A chastening introduction for Simon Nainggolan — 5.34
It is a hard way to meet a crowd. Marked 5.34 on the day he was handed the shirt, and the important thing now is what the next one looks like.
Squad7 Aug 2034
The medical room confirms 28 days on the sidelines for Andre Harriman-Annous, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Match5 Aug 2034
No end in sight to Charleroi's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Charleroi has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad7 Aug 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Charleroi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market7 Aug 2034
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Isaac Mbenza has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Charleroi.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces10 Jul 2034
Anger at Charleroi spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Boardroom10 Jul 2034
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Charleroi
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Squad10 Jul 2034
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 114 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market10 Jul 2034
“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 Charleroi, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad10 Jul 2034
62 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad10 Jul 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Charleroi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market19 Jun 2034
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Charleroi can pretend not to have heard.
Squad19 Jun 2034
Yacine Titraoui 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.
Squad19 Jun 2034
Aiham Ousou 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.
Boardroom19 Jun 2034
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Dedryck Castagne has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Charleroi have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Squad19 Jun 2034
5 new faces, and Charleroi are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Squad19 Jun 2034
Matisse Didden knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Matisse Didden trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad29 May 2034
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Charleroi will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Squad29 May 2034
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Kevin De Ketelaere has just signed for Charleroi, and for once the answer mattered.
Market29 May 2034
Only the photograph left for Falkner Bermeo
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Falkner Bermeo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Charleroi the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Boardroom29 May 2034
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Falkner Bermeo 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.
Squad29 May 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Charleroi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 May 2034
Words at Charleroi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aiham Ousou 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad3 Apr 2034
A knee injury of the worst kind for Amine Boukamir
18 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Charleroi lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Boardroom3 Apr 2034
Pressure builds in the Charleroi boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Boardroom3 Apr 2034
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Squad3 Apr 2034
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad3 Apr 2034
“The easiest signature of my career.” Antoine Colassin and Charleroi agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Apr 2034
Yacine Titraoui 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.
Market3 Apr 2034
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Boardroom3 Apr 2034
Wages eat 97% of everything Charleroi earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Market3 Apr 2034
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Boubacar Diallo has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Charleroi.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad6 Mar 2034
A knee injury of the worst kind for Amine Boukamir
46 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Charleroi lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Boardroom6 Mar 2034
Charleroi interviewed the field and appointed the corridor: Interim Coach keeps the job he had been doing in all but title. Sometimes the safest pair of hands is the one already holding the wheel.
Squad6 Mar 2034
Antoine Colassin 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.
Squad6 Mar 2034
Aiham Ousou 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.
Squad6 Mar 2034
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Mohamed Koné, and the manager let it.
Boardroom6 Mar 2034
Wages eat 103% of everything Charleroi earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Boardroom2 Jan 2034
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Charleroi
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Boardroom2 Jan 2034
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Squad2 Jan 2034
A one-man rearguard from Mohamed Koné
There were 7 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Market2 Jan 2034
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Charleroi can pretend not to have heard.
Squad2 Jan 2034
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Charleroi will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Squad2 Jan 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Charleroi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Jan 2034
Words at Charleroi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aiham Ousou 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.
Match31 Dec 2033
KAA Gent left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Loan watch2 Jan 2034
“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 Charleroi, and 0 appearances in 21 say he has earned the hearing.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom7 Nov 2033
Charleroi part company with the manager
The statement thanked him for his efforts and wished him well, in that order and in about that many words. The search begins immediately.
Squad7 Nov 2033
Antoine Colassin damages knee ligaments — 74 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 74 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.
Boardroom7 Nov 2033
“I have watched this squad. There is more in it than the table says.” First press conference, first promise — Thomas Robert made the one every new manager makes, and now comes the part where it gets checked.
Boardroom7 Nov 2033
Charleroi have nobody left to take training
Not an interim appointment — an institution with an empty coaching office. Somebody unfamiliar will run the sessions this week, and the question of how a club gets into this state is one the board will be asked and will not answer.
Match5 Nov 2033
8 matches without a win for Charleroi
The run now stands at 8, and the questions being asked around Charleroi are no longer polite ones.
Squad7 Nov 2033
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Charleroi will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Boardroom7 Nov 2033
“Somebody has to pick the team on Saturday, and this week that is me.” An interim appointment with no promises attached, which is how most of them start.
Squad7 Nov 2033
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Charleroi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Nov 2033
Words at Charleroi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aiham Ousou 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad12 Sep 2033
A knee injury of the worst kind for Antoine Colassin
133 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Charleroi lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad12 Sep 2033
Joedrick Pupe breaks a bone — 41 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 41 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match10 Sep 2033
Nobody wants to play Charleroi right now
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad12 Sep 2033
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Charleroi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Loan watch12 Sep 2033
“I did not go to Lokeren to sit and watch. I want to come back to Charleroi and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 5 matches say the rest.
Match10 Sep 2033
A 2‑0 win over Sint-Truiden, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad12 Sep 2033
“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 ratings12 Sep 2033
Bilal Bafdili was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.79. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Player ratings12 Sep 2033
A performance of 8.63 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom4 Jul 2033
the manager has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Charleroi can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
The terraces4 Jul 2033
The mood at Charleroi has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Squad4 Jul 2033
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Charleroi will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Boardroom4 Jul 2033
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Market4 Jul 2033
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Charleroi is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Boardroom4 Jul 2033
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Squad4 Jul 2033
Antoine Colassin 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.
Squad4 Jul 2033
Aiham Ousou 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.
Boardroom4 Jul 2033
Charleroi sign 7 boys into the academy
None of them will be seen by anybody outside the training ground for three years, most of them will never play a senior match, and one of them might change the club. That is the whole proposition, and it is why academies exist.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad27 Jun 2033
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 127 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market27 Jun 2033
“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 Charleroi, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market27 Jun 2033
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Charleroi they have already started talking about him in the past tense.