“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Yannick Carrasco after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Théo Defourny is on it.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Charleroi have no good answer.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
At 18 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.
It finished 2‑0, and it was Aurélien Scheidler’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Charleroi.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Isaac Mbenza 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.
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
“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.
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.” Yannick Carrasco, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
In brief
The dugoutIsaac Mbenza has become a man the manager trusts
5 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Charleroi can tell you which week it ends in.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Isaac Mbenza was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Yannick Carrasco after 0‑4, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Jason Denayer 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.
Something was said to Yassine Khalifi and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Charleroi, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Antoine Colassin’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Charleroi needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Charleroi. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 10 actions, 6.92, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Sint-Truiden scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Isaac Mbenza 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.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
“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 Charleroi, and 0 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
4 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Charleroi are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Antoine Colassin 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.
“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 Charleroi, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Yannick Carrasco after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Patrick Pflücke 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.
At 22 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.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.11, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Louis Yamaguchi's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Goalkeepers do not get to make mistakes; they get to make goals. He made one, he knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Yannick Carrasco chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Stade de Reims had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Charleroi and Lommel have settled on $610.0K. 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.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Aiham Ousou was one of the reasons people came, and $6.2M does not replace that by itself.
Charleroi have gone to Zulte Waregem with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Kéres Masangu is living that version at Charleroi, and it tends to show in the first month.
The fee is $770.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Patro Eisden drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Stade de Reims keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.