Marked for Yannick Batshuayi
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 37. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad31 Aug 2026
3 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 22 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Alain Gueï, 21, steals the show — 8.17
Marked 8.17 at 21, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Market31 Aug 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 The request is on a desk at Zulte Waregem, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Jelle Vossen, 37, rolls back the years — 7.89
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.89 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
The deal with Utrecht 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.
Match29 Aug 2026
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Zulte Waregem have 3 straight wins of it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market24 Aug 2026
The unthinkable, invoiced: Anosike Ementa sold
OH Leuven arrived with $5.0M and left with the best player in the building. The board will call it business; the queue at the ticket office will use other words.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer from Sint-Truiden for Jakob Kiilerich 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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A brace, and Jelle Vossen takes the afternoon — 8.87
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jelle Vossen provided it, and the 8.87 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 29 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market24 Aug 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 Zulte Waregem, and it is not being withdrawn.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
Anosike Ementa has gone, the accounts have $5.0M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
Market24 Aug 2026
The chase for Nordin Jackers ended with $3.1M changing hands and Club Brugge out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Squad24 Aug 2026
200 goals for this club, and somewhere in the stand there is a person who can still tell you where they were for most of them.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad17 Aug 2026
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Zulte Waregem will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Zulte Waregem have done the hard part with Club Brugge, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer from Stade Malien for Dirk Asare 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: OH Leuven have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Anosike Ementa. The answer from Zulte Waregem has not changed — yet.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Brent Gabriel and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Zulte Waregem asked and Rodina said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Match15 Aug 2026
OH Leuven left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Laurent Lemoine was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.