43 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. KV Kortrijk lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
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.
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.
“I did not go to Pafos to sit and watch. I want to come back to KV Kortrijk and fight for my place.” 2 appearances in 14 matches say the rest.
The dugout18 Oct 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Adnan Alderweireld to a room that had heard them before.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Gilles Dewaele trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Shandre Campbell will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at KV Kortrijk escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Shandre Campbell provided it, and the 9.26 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Successful dribbles: 24. 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.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
“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.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Words at KV Kortrijk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dylan Dassy 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.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Brecht Dejaegere is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Robert David 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.
In brief
Loan watchPatrik Gunnarsson is tired of being somebody else's player
Two goals and a mark of 8.69 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Deportivo La Coruña have kept their man, and KV Kortrijk go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Level with 96 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon KV Kortrijk had all but put away. OH Leuven will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. KV Oostende will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Lokeren waiting with a shirt. Nobody at KV Oostende is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“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 offer from TSG Hoffenheim for Nacer Openda 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.
Everything agreed with Standard Liege, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Christian Castagne 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Flamengo have kept their man, and KV Oostende go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
KV Kortrijk pay $19.0K, 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.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Kévin Malcuit 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.
Christian Castagne and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad31 May 2027
Words at KV Oostende training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Frank Graf 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.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at KV Oostende, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. KV Oostende know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at KV Oostende, another week without a signature from Yohan Mollo.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Dino Arslanagić has written the date down.
55 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.
“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.
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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Denis Lefebvre was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Denis Lefebvre is on it.
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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Christian Castagne is on it.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Position 6, 47 points, and a run-in that decides whether next season has Thursday nights in it. Nobody is calling it a race yet, which is what people say during one.
KAA Gent arrived with $21.8M and left with the best player in the building. The board will call it business; the queue at the ticket office will use other words.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
The clubs have shaken hands with KV Kortrijk; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“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.
Yannick Hazard has gone, the accounts have $21.8M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
KV Oostende close the window on a squad of their own making
4 in and 4 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
He is 20, he is averaging 7.02, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.