Marked for Radja Kompany
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market8 Feb 2027
“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 ratings8 Feb 2027
A brace, and Ryotaro Ito takes the afternoon — 8.19
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ryotaro Ito provided it, and the 8.19 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Both jobs done by Keisuke Goto — 7.21
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 19 actions, 7.21, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
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 Sint-Truiden this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at Sint-Truiden training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ilias Sebaoui 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.
Match6 Feb 2027
Three points for Sint-Truiden, 2‑1 the final word against Lokeren in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad8 Feb 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Radja Kompany and Sint-Truiden agree another 5 years.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Kiyani Zeggen is the division's best young player this month
At 20 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. Sint-Truiden will try very hard not to make too much of it.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 13. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
7.95, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
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.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 21. 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
Sint-Truiden pay $360.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Laurent 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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Adnan Chadli gets it from the manager
“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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Match30 Jan 2027
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Squad1 Feb 2027
The captaincy has been taken off Thorgan Castagne. KV Oostende will call it a decision about the team; a dressing room reads it as a verdict on a man.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market1 Feb 2027
The bid was some way short and Sint-Truiden did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market1 Feb 2027
“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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Shogo Taniguchi 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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Ilias Sebaoui 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.
Loan watch1 Feb 2027
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Sint-Truiden, and 5 appearances in 23 say he has earned the hearing.
Match30 Jan 2027
0‑1 to OH Leuven, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad1 Feb 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Malcolm Cacutalua, and the manager let it.
Market1 Feb 2027
He is 18, and nobody at Sint-Truiden signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Squad1 Feb 2027
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match9 Jan 2027
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Youri Castagne will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at KV Oostende escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Adnan Chadli: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” KV Oostende have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Match9 Jan 2027
No end in sight to KV Oostende's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at KV Oostende has to find a result from somewhere.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Up for the corner, and Thorgan Castagne delivers — 7.84
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Thorgan Castagne scored, was marked 7.84, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Market11 Jan 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Leander Alderweireld 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.
Match9 Jan 2027
It finished 3‑3, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 15. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad11 Jan 2027
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market4 Jan 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Radja Kompany did the work nobody counts — 6.72
20 combined actions and 6.72. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Squad4 Jan 2027
A move Kerr Smith would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Kerr Smith is living that version at KV Oostende, and it tends to show in the first month.
Match2 Jan 2027
4 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Leander 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.
Squad4 Jan 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.
Loan watch4 Jan 2027
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at KV Oostende, and 6 appearances in 19 say he has earned the hearing.
Match2 Jan 2027
The run at home goes on for KV Oostende
8 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Sep 2026
A fracture rules Thorgan Castagne out for 69 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason KV Oostende will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market28 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.
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
Charleroi left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad28 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Toby De Bruyne
“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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Kevin Mignolet's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad21 Sep 2026
A fracture rules Thorgan Castagne out for 76 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason KV Oostende will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
No sign of nerves from Radja Kompany at 18 — 7.75
The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Radja Kompany did not need any: 7.75, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Thorgan 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at KV Oostende training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Leander Alderweireld 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 terraces21 Sep 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 18-year-old it feels ownership of. Radja Kompany 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Sep 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 93 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad7 Sep 2026
There were 7 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.
Market7 Sep 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
The deal that would have taken Radja Kompany to Westerlo has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to KV Oostende with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Leander Alderweireld 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Michaël Heylen, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad31 Aug 2026
A fracture rules Thorgan Castagne out for 101 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason KV Oostende will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match26 Aug 2026
KV Kortrijk are out and KV Oostende go through, 3‑1 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
A debut Radja Meunier will not forget — 7.97
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 1 on the scoresheet, 7.97 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Leander 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.
Squad31 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.
The terraces31 Aug 2026
At 17 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.
Match29 Aug 2026
Club Brugge left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad24 Aug 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 109 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match22 Aug 2026
0‑3 to KV Mechelen, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
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 KV Oostende can pretend not to have heard.
Market24 Aug 2026
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.
Match22 Aug 2026
No end in sight to KV Oostende's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at KV Oostende has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Leander Alderweireld 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.
Boardroom24 Aug 2026
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Youri Castagne dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.