Marked for Yannick Tielemans
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad31 Aug 2026
Nacho Miras is the hero from the spot
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Nacho Miras: 3 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Match26 Aug 2026
A 0‑0 win over OH Leuven, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Match29 Aug 2026
Bill Antonio had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and KV Kortrijk were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 14 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.21 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match29 Aug 2026
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Market31 Aug 2026
The fee is $880.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. OH Leuven drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Ortwin De Wolf 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match26 Aug 2026
The cup run ends for Lokeren
1‑1 against Racing Genk, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Dedryck Doku could not have asked for more on his first appearance — 7.27
Debuts are survived rather than enjoyed. This one was enjoyed: 7.27, 1 goals, and a manager already being asked whether he starts again next week.
Squad31 Aug 2026
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Leander Mertens: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Market31 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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 25. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market31 Aug 2026
KV Mechelen paid $1.5M and Lokeren took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
A hand in 2 of them from Zinho Chadli — 7.13
Marked 7.13. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes itself.
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 Lokeren this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market31 Aug 2026
Business is business: Toby Januzaj goes
Charleroi paid $310.0K and Lokeren took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 28. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
No sign of nerves from Mihajlo Cvetković at 19 — 7.67
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Mihajlo Cvetković did not need any: 7.67, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Market24 Aug 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lokeren can pretend not to have heard.
Market24 Aug 2026
Lumezzane come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Lokeren did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
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 Lokeren this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market24 Aug 2026
The name of Yannick Tielemans has come up in conversations Lokeren were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Lokeren training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Youri Meunier 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 terraces24 Aug 2026
At 19 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.
Match22 Aug 2026
A 1‑0 win over Zulte Waregem, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 40. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market17 Aug 2026
Sint-Truiden paid $1.9M and Lokeren took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Laurent 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Adrià Vilanova 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.
Squad17 Aug 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.
Match15 Aug 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad17 Aug 2026
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Leander Mertens knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
Market17 Aug 2026
At 39, he has seen every situation this season can produce, twice. The legs will be managed; the head is the purchase.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Aug 2026
Chelsea paid $62.0M and Lokeren took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Market10 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market10 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: KAA Gent have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Dries Mignolet. The answer from Lokeren has not changed — yet.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Dries Mignolet commits to Lokeren for another 3 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Laurent 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Lokeren training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dries Mignolet 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Eden De Ketelaere, and the manager let it.
Market10 Aug 2026
Rémy Vasseur is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Lokeren has been clear about where Rémy Vasseur stands, which is more than many ever get.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 1 on the scoresheet, 8.06 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
Market3 Aug 2026
Willem II come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Lokeren did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market3 Aug 2026
The phone has started ringing about Dries De Ketelaere again, and this time the name on the line is Chelsea. Lokeren are listening politely and promising nothing.
Market3 Aug 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Lokeren heard it as anything else.
Squad3 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 Lokeren this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match1 Aug 2026
It finished 3‑1, and it was Yannick Tielemans’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Lokeren.
The terraces3 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Yannick Tielemans 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Radja Alderweireld 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 ratings3 Aug 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.06, and no argument anywhere in the ground.