Marked for Laurent Boyata
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market1 Mar 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at KV Oostende, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market1 Mar 2027
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at KV Oostende heard it as anything else.
Squad1 Mar 2027
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.
Squad1 Mar 2027
The manager makes an example of Jorge Moreno
“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.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Words at KV Oostende training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lois 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.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Leander Mignolet has become a man the manager trusts
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Pressure builds in the Parma boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Market1 Feb 2027
“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.
Match30 Jan 2027
8 matches without a win for Parma
The run now stands at 8, and the questions being asked around Parma are no longer polite ones.
Squad1 Feb 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Jérémie Boga 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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Zion Suzuki gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Match30 Jan 2027
Udinese left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Market1 Feb 2027
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Lautaro Valenti wants continental football; whether Parma can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad18 Jan 2027
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.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
No sign of nerves from Simon Openda at 20 — 7.81
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Simon Openda did not need any: 7.81, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad18 Jan 2027
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.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 21 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Match16 Jan 2027
Anderlecht made KV Oostende work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad18 Jan 2027
The manager makes an example of Éder
“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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Leander Mignolet'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.
Market18 Jan 2027
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Yannick Mertens signs something — a contract at KV Oostende or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market11 Jan 2027
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Newcastle United moved on, Mateo Pellegrino reports back to Parma, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Market11 Jan 2027
“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 Parma, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Antoine Joujou: 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.” Parma have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market11 Jan 2027
Business is business: Edoardo Corvi goes
Inter paid $4.6M and Parma took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Market11 Jan 2027
Parma say no — this time
The offer from Lecce for Christian Ordoñez 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 ratings11 Jan 2027
Age has not caught Laurent Boyata yet — 7.86
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.86 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Match9 Jan 2027
No end in sight to Parma's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Parma has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad11 Jan 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Zion Suzuki has improved at 24, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Dec 2026
Zinho Lukaku breaks a bone — 39 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 39 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Simon Openda, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.98
A mark of 7.98 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Market21 Dec 2026
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Ryoya Kimura is a better footballer than he was
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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at KV Oostende training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yannick Mertens 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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of Simon Courtois
“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.
Match19 Dec 2026
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
8 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 13. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad23 Nov 2026
A fracture rules Zinho Lukaku out for 70 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason KV Oostende will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match23 Nov 2026
30 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Squad23 Nov 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 KV Oostende this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 15 actions, 6.42, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Match21 Nov 2026
Eden Witsel scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Racing Genk, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Zinho Lukaku gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Dries Mertens 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.
The terraces23 Nov 2026
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 12. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.