Marked for Marcos Silva
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Apr 2027
Philippe Chevalier damages knee ligaments — 63 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 63 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad12 Apr 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Lokeren may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Jean-Luc Denis 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
Squad22 Mar 2027
85 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Lokeren lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad22 Mar 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Lokeren may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad22 Mar 2027
A season average of 7.13 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Lokeren know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 36. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Jason 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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
A move Walace Falcão 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. Walace Falcão is living that version at Lokeren, and it tends to show in the first month.
Loan watch8 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 Lokeren, and 0 appearances in 25 say he has earned the hearing.
Squad8 Feb 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Jean-Luc Denis, and the manager let it.
Match6 Feb 2027
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Market8 Feb 2027
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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Lucas Salinas 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 33. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad7 Dec 2026
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Alessandro Cardascio is living that version at Lokeren, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Jason 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.
Market7 Dec 2026
Lokeren may not be able to give Marcos Silva what he wants
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Marcos Silva wants continental football; whether Lokeren can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Mamadou Diarra commits to Lokeren for another 3 years.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Samuel Biek, and the manager let it.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
The afternoon belonged to Dries Witsel
A mark of 7.44, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Market7 Dec 2026
He is 20, and nobody at Lokeren signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Match5 Dec 2026
Point won or two lost for Lokeren?
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Zulte Waregem? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match28 Nov 2026
A European night to remember for Lokeren
1‑0 against Groningen, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Yannick Castagne, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.73
A mark of 7.73 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.
Squad30 Nov 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.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Dries Witsel has a hand in both — 7.65
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.65, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Miguel Ramírez gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Miguel Ramírez has just signed for Lokeren, and for once the answer mattered.
The terraces30 Nov 2026
At 20 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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Zinho Lukaku is in the form of his life
A season average of 7.30 with 10 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Squad30 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Eden Witsel
“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.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.21, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.49, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad14 Sep 2026
A muscle injury sidelines Eden Witsel for 15 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Lokeren will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Match12 Sep 2026
Zinho Lukaku scored, and precious little else went right: 2‑3 to Racing Genk, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Seiji Kimura and Lokeren agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Seiji Kimura 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Lokeren training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lucas Salinas 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match12 Sep 2026
The goal that put Racing Genk ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Lokeren equalised, 4 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
Market14 Sep 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Lokeren, another week without a signature from Ethan Butera.