Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Adnan De Bruyne will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around KV Oostende the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Yannick Batshuayi is on it.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Dedryck Lukaku has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
The language is coming and there is somebody to talk to in the dressing room. A footballer who feels at home plays like one, and it never shows up in a scouting report.
Nobody writes a headline about a tutor. Nobody has to be told, either, what happens to a signing who spends two years being the man nobody can talk to at lunch.
“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 The request is on a desk at KV Oostende, and it is not being withdrawn.
Jan Virgili 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 Adnan De Bruyne was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Yannick Batshuayi signs something — a contract at KV Oostende or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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.
Nobody at KV Oostende 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. KV Oostende know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“I will play as long as the body lets me and stop the day it does not.” He is 39, with 4 appearances behind him, and the club has to plan for a decision that is not yet made.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dedryck Lukaku was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Adnan De Bruyne 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.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. KV Oostende know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at KV Oostende, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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 is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. KV Oostende told Souleyman Doumbia something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Nobody at KV Oostende 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.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at KV Oostende. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
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 KV Oostende this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. KV Oostende told Jan Virgili something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
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.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and KV Oostende will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
45 points from position 5. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
In brief
The dugoutRémi Benoit asks for a word with the manager
1‑0 against Shakhtar, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Christian Meunier was at the centre of the description.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. KV Oostende scored in the 92th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.19 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Dedryck Lukaku and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at KV Oostende training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adnan De Bruyne 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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at KV Oostende pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Nobody at KV Oostende 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.