Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around KV Kortrijk they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” KV Kortrijk have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
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 Kortrijk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Boris Lambert 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Romain Correia is living that version at KV Kortrijk, and it tends to show in the first month.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” KV Kortrijk have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The fee is $450.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. KV Oostende drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Marko Ilić 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.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Words at KV Kortrijk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matteo Prati 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.
Add another name to the list: Westerlo have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Bryan Adinany. The answer from KV Kortrijk has not changed — yet.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 18 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Sint-Truiden defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
The words a physio says slowly. 102 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.
Position 1, 50 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
The offer from Mouscron for Jarno Libert 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.
Thomas Batshuayi 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Diego Mina is living that version at KV Oostende, and it tends to show in the first month.
Standard Liege pay $46.0K, 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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Yannick Castagne provided it, and the 8.49 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around KV Oostende they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
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.
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.
Squad16 Aug 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Charles Hazard's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
60 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.
“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.
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.
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.
Squad19 Jul 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Charles Hazard's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
The words a physio says slowly. 68 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.
Thomas Batshuayi 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 injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 18 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Words at KV Oostende training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Thomas Boyata 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.
A 1‑0 win over Zulte Waregem, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Marked 8.19 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
8 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
In brief
MarketThe window shut and Toby Onana is still in the building
“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.
Thijmen Blokzijl 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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Thomas Boyata 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.
Lokeren paid $210.0K and KV Oostende took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
11 shut-outs and counting. Goalkeepers are only noticed when they fail, and Thomas Batshuayi has given nobody the chance.
Squad25 Jan 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Charles Hazard's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 95th minute. Sint-Truiden will replay every second of the added time for a week.
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. KV Oostende will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.36 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
The name of Timothy Tielemans has come up in conversations KV Oostende were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
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 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.