The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Simon 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.
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 6 matches without defeat is a foundation KV Oostende did not have in the autumn.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at KV Oostende training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Michy Courtois 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.
Marked 8.28 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at KV Oostende training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Radja Hazard 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.
“I did not go to Standard Liege to sit and watch. I want to come back to KV Oostende and fight for my place.” 4 appearances in 12 matches say the rest.
Simon 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Radja Hazard 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.
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.
A window away with the national side, and a shirt at KV Oostende that briefly doubles as an advertisement. A call-up flatters the player and the club that built him in the same breath.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Michy Courtois signs something — a contract at KV Oostende or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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.
“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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Radja Hazard 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.
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.
The award is a small thing with a heavy meaning: for four weeks nobody in this division did his job better. KV Oostende have the trophy on a shelf and the player in the side.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 26 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Two goals and a mark of 8.66 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at KV Oostende training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Radja Hazard 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.
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.
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.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Simon 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Radja Hazard 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Axel Alderweireld provided it, and the 8.76 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at KV Oostende heard it as anything else.
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at KV Oostende training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Radja Hazard 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.
Rodrigo Mazur 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 2‑0 win over Westerlo, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad14 Sep 2026
9 new faces, and KV Oostende are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Axel Alderweireld has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
The offer from FC Nantes for Simon Castagne 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Josué Dorrio is living that version at KV Oostende, and it tends to show in the first month.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at KV Oostende heard it as anything else.
Kevin Januzaj 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.
Words at KV Oostende training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Radja Hazard 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.
In brief
The terracesKV Oostende spend $830.0K on the signing the town wanted