The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 93th minute. Lokeren will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Involvement in 2 goals, from a player who spent the ninety minutes doing the thing a manager actually wants: being where the ball was going to end up. 7.77 beside his name.
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.
Josué Kongolo 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.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Eden Onana 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.
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.
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 Dedryck Lukaku is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Christian Witsel trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Dirk Asare’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and KV Oostende needing him to play as if none of it matters.
2‑1 against NK Varazdin, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Yannick Batshuayi was at the centre of the description.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Eden Onana did not need any: 7.79, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Dedryck Lukaku 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at KV Oostende training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Christian Witsel 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.
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 Michy Vanaken is on 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 KV Oostende 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 Dedryck Lukaku was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Christian Witsel will call it something else in private.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Jason Meunier is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
1‑0 against Willem II, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Radja Kompany was at the centre of the description.
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.73, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Eden Onana, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.78
A mark of 7.78 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.
At 20 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.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Westerlo spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
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.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Radja Kompany was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.34. 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.
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.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 13 combined actions and a mark of 7.28, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Something was said to Christian Meunier and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Christian Meunier reports back to KV Oostende with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 6 signed and 5 gone
That is the business done at KV Oostende until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at KV Oostende training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dedryck Lukaku 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.
KV Oostende asked and KAA Gent said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Eden Onana is the division's best young player this month
At 21 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. KV Oostende will try very hard not to make too much of it.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 93th minute. Club Brugge will replay every second of the added time for a week.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what KV Oostende can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Eden Onana, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.62
A mark of 7.62 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.09 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. KAA Gent moved on, Hans Carrasco reports back to KV Oostende, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. KAA Gent have kept their man, and KV Oostende go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
27 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. KV Oostende lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
$12.5M on the table at New England Revolution. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The offer went to Mouscron 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 deal with Zulte Waregem is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Dedryck Lukaku 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Christian Witsel was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
34 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. KV Oostende lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The offer from Anderlecht for Adnan De Bruyne was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Zinho Meunier had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Simon Meunier was one of the reasons people came, and $38.5M does not replace that by itself.
$2.8M on the table at OH Leuven. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Dedryck Lukaku and KV Oostende agree another 5 years.
42 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. KV Oostende lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The offer from Anderlecht for Radja Kompany was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Two goals and a mark of 8.18 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Eden Onana did not need any: 8.17, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The name of Simon Meunier has come up in conversations KV Oostende were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.