Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 11 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The offer from Club Brugge for Youri Meunier 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Mouscron, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mouscron this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Two of the goals had his name somewhere on them, which is the afternoon a manager wants from anybody asked to both create and finish. 7.95, and 2 involvements.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Mouscron and Racing Genk, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Yannick Tielemans did not need any: 8.41, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The deal that would have taken Helmut Friedrich to RB Leipzig has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Mouscron with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
The offer from Toulouse FC for Lois Lukaku 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.
Youri Batshuayi 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.
A mark of 8.35 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mouscron this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Kevin Lukaku 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.
A 2‑1 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.
At 21 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.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Helmut Friedrich in the middle of it, and Zulte Waregem unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
8.14. 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.