The words a physio says slowly. 157 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.
Adrien Saussez 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marc Giger 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.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Karl Ndedi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
In brief
SquadQuestions about Jonás Ramalho on the training pitch
The words a physio says slowly. 116 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.
Adrien Saussez 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 Marc Giger was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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; Olympic Charleroi are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Robert Ion trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“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 The request is on a desk at Olympic Charleroi, and it is not being withdrawn.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Olympic Charleroi have done the hard part with Anderlecht, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Adrien Saussez 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marc Giger 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.
Olympic Charleroi asked and Club Brugge said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 37 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Adrien Saussez 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Jonás Ramalho 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Marc Giger 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.
Marked 8.05 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
The dugout28 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.” Lois Carrasco, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
There were 89 minutes on the clock and Jong Genk had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Olympic Charleroi did not stop to explain themselves.
Adrien Saussez 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 Marc Giger was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.91 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Adrien Saussez 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.
A 3‑2 win over Lokeren-Temse, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Marc Giger was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 22 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.
There were 89 minutes on the clock and Lommel had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Olympic Charleroi did not stop to explain themselves.
Adrien Saussez 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 Marc Giger was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Thomas Ephestion. 1‑0 against Lommel, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
8.14. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Jens Cools commits to Olympic Charleroi for another 2 years.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Marc Giger 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.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 36 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Olympic Charleroi is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.