1‑1 against NK Varazdin, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Dedryck Meunier was at the centre of the description.
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.
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.
“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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Zinho Openda'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.
1 error, one goal, and a night in front of the same three seconds. He will see it tonight, tomorrow and probably in February, and everybody who has played knows exactly which frame he keeps stopping on.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.09 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Mouscron training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dedryck Meunier 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.
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.
7 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.15 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Mouscron have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
Leander Lukaku 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.
Marked 8.55 — 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.
“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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Mouscron training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Michy De Ketelaere 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Mouscron will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Anderlecht left with the points after a 1‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Mouscron training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dedryck Meunier 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.
Émile Dupuis 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 23 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
1‑0 against Pogon, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Simon Mignolet was at the centre of the description.
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.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.25 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Dedryck Meunier 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.
20 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Mouscron lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 37 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
23 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
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.
Michy De Ketelaere 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.
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Yannick Meunier was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.69. 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.
27 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Mouscron lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
2‑3 away to the standard of PSV. Nobody will pretend this was a scandal; the gap is real, it is measurable, and closing it is a project rather than a team talk.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.81 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Dedryck Meunier 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Toby Mertens, and the manager let it.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Yannick Meunier was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.03. 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 35 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Leander Lukaku 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 words a physio says slowly. 42 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.
He is going to Zulte Waregem, the club has $560.0K it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.03 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Zulte Waregem paid $560.0K and Mouscron took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Yannick Meunier scored, and precious little else went right: 2‑3 to KV Mechelen, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Mouscron training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dedryck Meunier 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 15 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
50 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Mouscron lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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.
The name of Christian Batshuayi has come up in conversations Mouscron were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
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.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.30 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Dedryck Meunier 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.
KAA Gent paid $3.0M and Mouscron took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
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.
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.
The offer from OH Leuven for Zinho Openda 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 27 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
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.
Add another name to the list: KAA Gent have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Hans De Ketelaere. The answer from Mouscron has not changed — yet.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.51, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Youri Witsel, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.90
A mark of 7.90 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
The phone has started ringing about Youri Witsel again, and this time the name on the line is PSV. Mouscron are listening politely and promising nothing.
“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 Mouscron, and it is not being withdrawn.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Émile Dupuis and Mouscron agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Mouscron training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dedryck Meunier 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.
Émile Dupuis 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.