Marked for Christian Kompany
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 48. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match20 Feb 2027
2‑1 against Zorya, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Bruno Miño was at the centre of the description.
Match20 Feb 2027
The run at home goes on for KV Oostende
16 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Match20 Feb 2027
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. KV Oostende scored in the 105th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
Both of them Bruno Miño's — 8.46
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.46, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Hans Chadli in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Words at KV Oostende training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. David Cornell 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 terraces22 Feb 2027
The crowd has taken to Bruno Miño
At 23 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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Christian Kompany will call it something else in private.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
A brace, and Nikita Krivtsov takes the afternoon — 9.24
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Nikita Krivtsov provided it, and the 9.24 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Match6 Feb 2027
The run at home goes on for KV Oostende
15 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Market8 Feb 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Match6 Feb 2027
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about KV Oostende and Mouscron in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at KV Oostende training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Christian Chadli 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 ratings8 Feb 2027
Eden De Bruyne was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.10. 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.
Squad8 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 KV Oostende this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match6 Feb 2027
A 3‑3 draw with Mouscron leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 32. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market1 Feb 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.
Market1 Feb 2027
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.
Squad1 Feb 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.
Match30 Jan 2027
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad1 Feb 2027
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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
The manager makes an example of David Cornell
“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 Feb 2027
20 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Market1 Feb 2027
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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match5 Dec 2026
KV Oostende win it in stoppage time
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 90th minute. KV Mechelen will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.30 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Maximiliano Caufriez 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.
Match5 Dec 2026
10 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Match5 Dec 2026
It finished 4‑3, and it was Jason Onana’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to KV Oostende.
Squad7 Dec 2026
He is 21, he is averaging 7.01, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Match5 Dec 2026
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.
The terraces7 Dec 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Jason Onana 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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
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.