Marked for Peter Schulze
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad19 Oct 2026
Laurent Meunier 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.
Match17 Oct 2026
It finished 3‑1, and it was Laurent Meunier’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to KV Oostende.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
A performance of 8.28 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.27, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Dries Meunier was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.04. 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.
Match17 Oct 2026
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Laurent Meunier had KV Oostende level again within 4 minutes, and KV Kortrijk never got to play with a lead at all.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Radja Onana 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Jason Vertonghen 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 43. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match3 Oct 2026
1‑0 against Keflavik, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Yannick Mertens was at the centre of the description.
Match3 Oct 2026
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. KV Oostende scored in the 90th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Market5 Oct 2026
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Hans Vanaken wants continental football; whether KV Oostende can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad5 Oct 2026
He will be fined, he will apologise, and he will play on Saturday. The order of those three tells you everything about what a football club actually values.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Laurent Meunier 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Bruno Marchand commits to KV Oostende for another 1 years.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at KV Oostende training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Triantafyllos Tsapras 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 ratings5 Oct 2026
Marked 7.55 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, KV Oostende had the best player on the pitch.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 33. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad28 Sep 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.
Match26 Sep 2026
A 2‑1 win over Charleroi, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Hans Vanaken was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.49. 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.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.13, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at KV Oostende training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Radja Onana 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
Market7 Sep 2026
“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.
Market7 Sep 2026
Add another name to the list: KV Kortrijk have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Bruno Marchand. The answer from KV Oostende has not changed — yet.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Laurent Meunier 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 Sep 2026
3 matches without a goal for KV Oostende
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Match5 Sep 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Arne Cassaert
“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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Radja Onana 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The plan did not have a place for Arne Cassaert
Nobody at KV Oostende is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 34. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match26 Aug 2026
KV Kortrijk ended it 0‑1. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Squad31 Aug 2026
There were 6 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.
Market31 Aug 2026
KV Kortrijk 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.
Market31 Aug 2026
“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.
Squad31 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.
Match29 Aug 2026
Club Brugge left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at KV Oostende training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adnan Tielemans 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 ratings31 Aug 2026
Yannick Mertens ran the middle of the pitch — 6.61
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 10 combined actions and a mark of 6.61, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match22 Aug 2026
Laurent Meunier wins it after the whistle should have gone
96 minutes played. Laurent Meunier found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and KV Mechelen went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 30. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market24 Aug 2026
Forli 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
“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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Laurent Meunier 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.
Match22 Aug 2026
KV Mechelen made KV Oostende work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Radja Onana 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 ratings24 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes of Dries Meunier at his very best
Marked 8.12. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at KV Oostende.