Yannick De Ketelaere 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.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Timothy 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.
In brief
SquadHans Hazard has become a man the manager trusts
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Axel Meunier, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.68
A mark of 7.68 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Lion Lauberbach 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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at KV Oostende training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kevin Batshuayi 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Hans Hazard. 3‑2 against Mouscron, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
0‑1 to KAA Gent, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Timothy 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.
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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at KV Oostende pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. KV Oostende know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
7.16, 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.
Christian Carrasco 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.
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.
Add another name to the list: Charleroi have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Radja Hazard. The answer from KV Oostende has not changed — yet.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Romelu Meunier was one of the reasons people came, and $51.0M does not replace that by itself.
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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at KV Oostende training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kevin Batshuayi 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.
Timothy Onana wins it after the whistle should have gone
94 minutes played. Timothy Onana found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Sint-Truiden went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
The offer from Anderlecht for Axel 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.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and KV Oostende have had the benefit of it.
“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.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Up for the corner, and Timothy Onana delivers — 7.74
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Timothy Onana scored, was marked 7.74, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Christian Carrasco 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.
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.07, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at KV Oostende training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kevin Batshuayi 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.
At 16 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.
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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
8 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.
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.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Axel Meunier did not need any: 7.66, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at KV Oostende training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kevin Batshuayi 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.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. KV Oostende know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The offer from Mouscron for Radja Hazard 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.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Dedryck Mignolet did not need any: 7.99, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“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.
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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at KV Oostende training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kevin Batshuayi 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.
Amine Boukamir is 19, and KV Oostende have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.