Marked for Dries Witsel
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 36. 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.
Match23 Nov 2026
First, on 38 points. The table is a fact and a fact is allowed to be enjoyed, which is as far as anybody at the club is prepared to go in public.
Match21 Nov 2026
Still nobody has beaten Club Brugge
The unbeaten run reaches 12. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
Andrej Vasović: 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.” Club Brugge have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Yann Sommer in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Club Brugge this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Batista Mendy 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.
Looking ahead23 Nov 2026
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Simon Tielemans was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.18. 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.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Dries Witsel
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match17 Sep 2026
A statement in Europe from Club Brugge
4‑0 against Kolos, and a performance that will change how the rest of the competition talks about this club. Reputations in continental football are built in single evenings and this was one.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A fracture rules Nordin Jackers out for 52 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Club Brugge will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.54 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
No sign of nerves from Kyriani Sabbe at 21 — 7.61
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Kyriani Sabbe did not need any: 7.61, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Abdellah Zoubir, 34, rolls back the years — 7.89
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.89 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Yann Sommer and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Batista Mendy was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match19 Sep 2026
1‑2 to Zulte Waregem, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad31 Aug 2026
4 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.
Match26 Aug 2026
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Jan Virgili obliged against Mouscron. 6‑2 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Club Brugge.
Match29 Aug 2026
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 4‑0 against KV Oostende, and it could have been more.
Market31 Aug 2026
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Club Brugge have paid $15.5M for Batista Mendy, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 78 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market31 Aug 2026
Club Brugge spend $11.7M to raise the standard
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $11.7M has been paid because Dries Witsel is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 9.24 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market31 Aug 2026
Terms done: Stan Naert is going
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Bromley waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Club Brugge is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Transfer targets31 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market31 Aug 2026
$11.7M from Club Brugge for Dries Witsel. Money is money, but the dressing room has lost the man it looked to.
Match29 Aug 2026
0‑4 against Club Brugge, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Match26 Aug 2026
1‑2 against KV Kortrijk, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Squad31 Aug 2026
There were 8 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.
Market31 Aug 2026
The offer from Standard Liege for Thomas Tielemans 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.
The terraces31 Aug 2026
KV Oostende sell a favourite for $11.7M
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Dries Witsel was one of the reasons people came, and $11.7M does not replace that by itself.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
KV Oostende asked and Standard Liege said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Racing Genk wanted more than $1.7M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
The deal with Basaksehir 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 42. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad24 Aug 2026
86 days out for Nordin Jackers after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Club Brugge will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Club Brugge have gone to Trabzonspor 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.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Slavia Prague have kept their man, and Club Brugge go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Club Brugge have gone to KV Oostende 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Eibar had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Market24 Aug 2026
Club Brugge spend $3.4M to raise the standard
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $3.4M has been paid because Mathias Delorge is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Mathias Delorge arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Mathias Delorge has, at Club Brugge, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Market24 Aug 2026
Poltava come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Club Brugge did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market24 Aug 2026
$2.9M is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 34. 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
Roda come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and KV Oostende did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
KV Oostende asked and Austin FC said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Dries Witsel, 21, steals the show — 7.88
Marked 7.88 at 21, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
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 KV Oostende, and it is not being withdrawn.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
Supporters turn on the $2.9M sale of Radja Hazard
He is going to Mouscron, the club has $2.9M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Market24 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. KV Oostende have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
KV Oostende have gone to Racing Genk 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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad3 Aug 2026
The match ball belongs to Kevin De Bruyne, whose 8 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Match1 Aug 2026
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 28‑0 against Lokeren, and it could have been more.
Squad3 Aug 2026
The match ball belongs to Dries Witsel, whose 6 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Squad3 Aug 2026
5 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
3 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.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Dries Witsel, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.36
A mark of 8.36 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
A defender's goal wins it for KV Oostende — 7.94
1 for Zinho Meunier, marked 7.94, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
A defender's goal wins it for KV Oostende — 7.53
1 for Thomas Tielemans, marked 7.53, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.