Marked for Yannick Castagne
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match1 Jul 2030
Mouscron sink to position 15
7 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Market1 Jul 2030
Lois Onana hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Mouscron can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets1 Jul 2030
Mouscron and Sint-Truiden have settled on $1.1M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Squad1 Jul 2030
Michy Onana 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 Jul 2030
A move Shota Chikhradze 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. Shota Chikhradze is living that version at Mouscron, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad1 Jul 2030
Yannick Castagne is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad1 Jul 2030
Roméo Amané 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.
The dugout1 Jul 2030
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Boardroom1 Jul 2030
KV Oostende will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Tristen Alliet has pre-agreed a move to Mouscron, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match24 Nov 2029
30 matches without a win for Mouscron
The run now stands at 30, and the questions being asked around Mouscron are no longer polite ones.
The dugout26 Nov 2029
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Player ratings26 Nov 2029
A defender's goal wins it for Mouscron — 7.76
1 for Jérémie Lioka, marked 7.76, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Squad26 Nov 2029
A falling-out at Mouscron
Michy Onana and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad26 Nov 2029
A row about effort at Mouscron
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Roméo Amané was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match24 Nov 2029
1‑3 to OH Leuven, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout26 Nov 2029
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Madi Monamay, and the manager let it.
Looking ahead26 Nov 2029
A six-pointer for Mouscron
Lokeren next, and both sides can do the sum. Win and the table looks different; lose and it looks the way everybody has been fearing.
Squad26 Nov 2029
“The easiest signature of my career.” Yannick Castagne and Mouscron agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match11 Aug 2029
The wait goes on for Mouscron
14 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.
Squad13 Aug 2029
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 30 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The dugout13 Aug 2029
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Mouscron may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad13 Aug 2029
6 saves: Davy Roef was the team
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The dugout13 Aug 2029
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Transfer targets13 Aug 2029
The deal with Westerlo is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Squad13 Aug 2029
Michy Onana in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad13 Aug 2029
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Player ratings13 Aug 2029
Nobody could get near Lois Onana
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad27 Nov 2028
22 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Mouscron lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market27 Nov 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Mouscron can pretend not to have heard.
Match25 Nov 2028
It had gone 8 games. The players did not celebrate like men who had won a match; they celebrated like men who had been let out of something.
Squad27 Nov 2028
Words exchanged at Mouscron
Michy Onana and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Market27 Nov 2028
The shirt still fits. Kevin Carrasco is back at Mouscron, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Squad27 Nov 2028
A row about effort at Mouscron
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Roméo Amané was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The terraces27 Nov 2028
Mouscron supporters have found a favourite in Noé Verron
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Noé Verron 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.
Match25 Nov 2028
It finished 1‑0, and it was Julien Bègue’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Mouscron.
Looking ahead27 Nov 2028
Everything rides on Lokeren
Both clubs in the mire, one fixture between them, and a ground that will be louder and more frightened than at any point in the season. Mouscron know what is at stake and so does everybody in the away end.