Marked for Michy Mignolet
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market24 Aug 2026
“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 The request is on a desk at Racing Genk, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer from Vitesse for Ken Nkuba 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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Age has not caught Junya Ito yet — 8.01
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.01 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market24 Aug 2026
OH Leuven did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $1.8M for Birger Verstraete, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Racing Genk asked and KV Oostende said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market24 Aug 2026
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
$830.0K was the most the club would pay and KAA Gent were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Michy Mignolet 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.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Rafiu Durosinmi has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
$17.1M was the most the club would pay and Austin FC were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Market17 Aug 2026
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Aaron Bibout had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $21.6M — a club that wants Facundo Torres enough to be asked twice.
Market17 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: Avispa Fukuoka have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Robin Mirisola. The answer from Racing Genk has not changed — yet.
Squad17 Aug 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 Racing Genk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match15 Aug 2026
KV Kortrijk made Racing Genk work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Marked 7.93. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Laurent Alderweireld could afford to be generous.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The first one is the one every signing is asked about until it arrives. It has arrived, and he can stop being asked.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Racing Genk pay $12.3M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Market10 Aug 2026
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.
Market10 Aug 2026
“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.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
The terraces10 Aug 2026
KV Oostende sell a favourite for $38.5M
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.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
$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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market10 Aug 2026
Al-Ittihad did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $19.5M for Steven Bergwijn, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Racing Genk offered $27.9M; Stade Brestois said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Market10 Aug 2026
KV Oostende did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $12.3M for Michy Mignolet, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Racing Genk asked and Charleroi said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market10 Aug 2026
Qarabag did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $2.8M for Mateusz Kochalski, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Racing Genk have gone to KAA Gent with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Rafiu Durosinmi and Racing Genk agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Yira Sor wants to go home
“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 Racing Genk know it.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Michy Mignolet 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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad3 Aug 2026
9 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Squad3 Aug 2026
The match ball belongs to Yannick Batshuayi, whose 7 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Match1 Aug 2026
24‑0, and Michy Mignolet took the headlines on an afternoon when everything KV Oostende tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Squad3 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Dries De Bruyne
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.
Market3 Aug 2026
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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
The match ball belongs to Eden Onana, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
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.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
No sign of nerves from Eden Onana at 20 — 8.17
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.
Market3 Aug 2026
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.