Marked for Toby Kompany
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings18 Oct 2027
Successful dribbles: 44. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad18 Oct 2027
51 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Red Star lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match16 Oct 2027
Red Star win it in stoppage time
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 91th minute. AC Ajaccio will replay every second of the added time for a week.
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 Red Star this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Words at Red Star training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Leonardo Buta 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.
Match16 Oct 2027
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Guillaume Trani. 1‑0 against AC Ajaccio, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad9 Aug 2027
Quentin Beunardeau damages knee ligaments — 126 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 126 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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Toby Kompany gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Toby Kompany has just signed for Red Star, and for once the answer mattered.
Market9 Aug 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 The request is on a desk at Red Star, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market9 Aug 2027
Gaëtan Poussin 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 Red Star hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Player ratings9 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 23. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad9 Aug 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 Red Star this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Aug 2027
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.
Player ratings9 Aug 2027
The cruellest goal, and it is Damien Durand's
A touch he did not want, a bounce he could not have read, and his name in the wrong column. There is no consoling a man after one of these, and Red Star will not try tonight.
Match7 Aug 2027
A 1‑1 draw with Valenciennes leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market14 Jun 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market14 Jun 2027
The fee is $1.8M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. KV Kortrijk drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Squad14 Jun 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Toby Januzaj and KV Oostende agree another 4 years.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Hans Chadli 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 terraces14 Jun 2027
KV Oostende spend $1.8M on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $1.8M for Patrik Gunnarsson, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Christian Chadli 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
Triumph
Squad16 Nov 2026
Dries Vanaken is in the form of his life
A season average of 7.82 with 29 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 37 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match14 Nov 2026
5‑2, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Squad16 Nov 2026
The match ball belongs to Dries Vanaken, whose 4 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings16 Nov 2026
A performance of 9.99 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Match14 Nov 2026
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about KV Oostende and Lokeren in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Player ratings16 Nov 2026
A performance of 9.75 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market14 Sep 2026
Dijon 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.
Squad14 Sep 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 ratings14 Sep 2026
Dries Vanaken was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.53. 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
Three points for KV Oostende, 3‑1 the final word against Westerlo in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad14 Sep 2026
David Cornell 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Joaquín Petino 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Too much change too quickly at KV Oostende
8 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Player ratings14 Sep 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.
Market14 Sep 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Eden De Bruyne’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer from Ajax for Hans Chadli 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 ratings24 Aug 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.98, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Match22 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 86th, and KV Mechelen spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 28. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market24 Aug 2026
Toby Kompany 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
Charleroi paid $1.5M 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.
Squad24 Aug 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
Vizela are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. KV Oostende will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Match22 Aug 2026
It finished 2‑0, and it was Dries Vanaken’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to KV Oostende.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Maximiliano Caufriez is living that version at KV Oostende, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Dries Vanaken commits to KV Oostende for another 5 years.
Market10 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Hans Chadli 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Monaco are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. KV Oostende will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Eden De Bruyne 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 ratings10 Aug 2026
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.
Market10 Aug 2026
No place for Toby Kompany in the plan
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Toby Kompany has his answer from KV Oostende; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Match8 Aug 2026
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.