Marked for Youri Kompany
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad19 Jun 2028
Youri Kompany damages knee ligaments — 21 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 21 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.
Market19 Jun 2028
“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.
Market19 Jun 2028
OH Leuven 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.
Squad19 Jun 2028
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.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Brian Oliván 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.
Boardroom19 Jun 2028
Charleroi will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Théo Defourny has pre-agreed a move to KV Oostende, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market12 Jun 2028
$90.8M from Barcelona for Simon Openda. Money is money, but the dressing room has lost the man it looked to.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Youri Kompany damages knee ligaments — 28 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 28 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.
Market12 Jun 2028
The offer from PSV for Yannick Mertens 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.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Jonas Föhrenbach has just signed for KV Oostende, and for once the answer mattered.
Match12 Jun 2028
KV Oostende are in among the leaders
Position 3 and 50 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
The terraces12 Jun 2028
KV Oostende sell a favourite for $90.8M
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Simon Openda was one of the reasons people came, and $90.8M does not replace that by itself.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad10 Jan 2028
A fracture rules Youri Kompany out for 17 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.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market10 Jan 2028
“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.
Match8 Jan 2028
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 9 matches without defeat is a foundation KV Oostende did not have in the autumn.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Leander 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.
Squad10 Jan 2028
A move Lorenzo Carfora would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Lorenzo Carfora is living that version at KV Oostende, and it tends to show in the first month.
Match8 Jan 2028
It finished 1‑0, and it was Radja Meunier’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to KV Oostende.
Player ratings10 Jan 2028
Ninety minutes of Radja Meunier at his very best
Marked 8.31. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at KV Oostende.
Player ratings10 Jan 2028
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Jan 2028
Arsenal 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.
Squad3 Jan 2028
A fracture rules Youri Kompany out for 25 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.
Market3 Jan 2028
The phone has started ringing about Yannick Mertens again, and this time the name on the line is PSV. KV Oostende are listening politely and promising nothing.
Market3 Jan 2028
Éder hands in a written request
“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.
Match1 Jan 2028
Whatever happens, KV Oostende do not lose
8 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Leander 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.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Yannick 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.
Squad3 Jan 2028
The manager makes an example of Simon Openda
“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.
Player ratings3 Jan 2028
Successful dribbles: 19. 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
Upbeat
Squad27 Dec 2027
A fracture rules Youri Kompany out for 34 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.
Player ratings27 Dec 2027
No sign of nerves from Simon Openda at 21 — 8.14
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Simon Openda did not need any: 8.14, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Player ratings27 Dec 2027
Age has not caught Radja Castagne yet — 8.34
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.34 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad27 Dec 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.
Match25 Dec 2027
Whatever happens, KV Oostende do not lose
7 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad27 Dec 2027
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.
Match25 Dec 2027
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Radja Castagne. 3‑1 against Waasland-Beveren, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad27 Dec 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Sverrir Ingi Ingason, and the manager let it.
Player ratings27 Dec 2027
4.63 on the card. Some afternoons a footballer looks like a man who has only just been introduced to the game, and this was one of them.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad20 Dec 2027
Brian Oliván: 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.” KV Oostende have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Youri Kompany breaks a bone — 42 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 42 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings20 Dec 2027
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Leander 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.
Match18 Dec 2027
Still nobody has beaten KV Oostende
The unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Yannick 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match11 Dec 2027
3‑0, and Andrea Belotti took the headlines on an afternoon when everything KV Oostende tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Squad13 Dec 2027
A fracture rules Youri Kompany out for 52 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.
Player ratings13 Dec 2027
Simon Openda, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.61
A mark of 8.61 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.
Squad13 Dec 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.
Squad13 Dec 2027
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.
Player ratings13 Dec 2027
Leander Mignolet was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.47. 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.
Squad13 Dec 2027
The manager makes an example of Andrea Belotti
“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.
Market13 Dec 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Laurent Doku’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Player ratings13 Dec 2027
Marked 5.69, and generously at that. Nothing came off, and by the end the crowd had stopped expecting it to.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match4 Dec 2027
4‑1, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Squad6 Dec 2027
A fracture rules Youri Kompany out for 59 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.
Player ratings6 Dec 2027
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.49, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Domagoj Vida: 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.” KV Oostende have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market6 Dec 2027
“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.
Market6 Dec 2027
Radja Meunier wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at KV Oostende hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Brian Oliván 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.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Yannick 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.
Loan watch6 Dec 2027
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at KV Oostende, and 8 appearances in 19 say he has earned the hearing.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad29 Nov 2027
Youri Kompany breaks a bone — 67 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 67 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market29 Nov 2027
“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.
Squad29 Nov 2027
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.
Squad29 Nov 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Simon Openda, and the manager let it.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Mario Rivas 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.
Match27 Nov 2027
It needed Andrea Belotti to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Racing Genk, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad22 Nov 2027
A fracture rules Youri Kompany out for 75 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.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings22 Nov 2027
Age has not caught Andrea Belotti yet — 8.10
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.10 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad22 Nov 2027
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 16 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Squad22 Nov 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Radja Meunier commits to KV Oostende for another 4 years.
Match20 Nov 2027
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Andrea Belotti. 2‑0 against Lokeren, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings22 Nov 2027
Ninety minutes of Leander Mignolet at his very best
Marked 8.13. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at KV Oostende.
Player ratings22 Nov 2027
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.
Player ratings22 Nov 2027
Marked 5.24, and generously at that. Nothing came off, and by the end the crowd had stopped expecting it to.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad15 Nov 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Michaël Heylen
17 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.
Squad15 Nov 2027
Youri Kompany breaks a bone — 83 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 83 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings15 Nov 2027
Age has not caught Radja Castagne yet — 8.38
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.38 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad15 Nov 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 ratings15 Nov 2027
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad15 Nov 2027
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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad8 Nov 2027
Michaël Heylen damages knee ligaments — 27 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 27 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.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Youri Kompany breaks a bone — 92 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 92 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Leander 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.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Yannick 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.
Player ratings8 Nov 2027
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match6 Nov 2027
Zulte Waregem left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad1 Nov 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Michaël Heylen
35 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.
Squad1 Nov 2027
A fracture rules Youri Kompany out for 100 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.
Squad1 Nov 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” KV Oostende may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad1 Nov 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.
Match30 Oct 2027
0‑2 to Mouscron, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings1 Nov 2027
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings1 Nov 2027
4.46. Every footballer has these and most of them happen away from a full ground; his did not, and he will be aware of that all week.
Market1 Nov 2027
The Simon Openda story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Simon Openda signs something — a contract at KV Oostende or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Player ratings1 Nov 2027
9 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad25 Oct 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Michaël Heylen
44 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.
Match23 Oct 2027
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 4‑0 against KV Kortrijk, and it could have been more.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Youri Kompany breaks a bone — 108 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 108 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings25 Oct 2027
A brace, and Andrea Belotti takes the afternoon — 8.33
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Andrea Belotti provided it, and the 8.33 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings25 Oct 2027
No sign of nerves from Simon Openda at 21 — 7.62
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Simon Openda did not need any: 7.62, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Leander 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.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Yannick 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 terraces25 Oct 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Simon Openda 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.
Player ratings25 Oct 2027
Marked 8.64 — 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad18 Oct 2027
A fracture rules Youri Kompany out for 118 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.
Market18 Oct 2027
“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.
Squad18 Oct 2027
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.
Squad18 Oct 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.
Match16 Oct 2027
1‑2 to KAA Gent, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad18 Oct 2027
The manager makes an example of Alex Cochrane
“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.
Player ratings18 Oct 2027
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.
Market18 Oct 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.
The terraces18 Oct 2027
Everybody has an opinion about Zinho Lukaku
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.