The words a physio says slowly. 53 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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around KV Kortrijk people have started saying his name in the past tense.
KAA Gent have accepted the money. What KV Kortrijk do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Joris Delle 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Goduine Koyalipou was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
KV Kortrijk asked and Anderlecht said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what KV Mechelen can pretend not to have heard.
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 Mechelen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
KV Mechelen asked and Waasland-Beveren said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The dugout18 Jan 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 2‑3 Dries Doku left the room before anybody could ask which.
61 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. KV Kortrijk lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around KV Kortrijk people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what KV Kortrijk can pretend not to have heard.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Club Brugge is saying, and nobody at KV Kortrijk is enjoying the guessing.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Fuhna Wirsiy Nsolo has agreed terms with Zulte Waregem for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Joris Delle 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.
“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 Mechelen, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Sint-Truiden waiting with a shirt. Nobody at KV Mechelen is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Two goals and a mark of 8.48 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The deal with KV Kortrijk 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.
The phone has started ringing about Ortwin De Wolf again, and this time the name on the line is Lokeren. KV Mechelen are listening politely and promising nothing.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Trabzonspor keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
93 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. KV Kortrijk lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Christian Vertonghen, on a 3‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Nobody at KV Kortrijk 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.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Marko Ilić: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Charlotte Football Club wanted more than $6.9M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around KV Kortrijk are no longer polite ones.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at KV Kortrijk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marko Ilić 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.
KV Kortrijk asked and Fenerbahce said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.