It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Standard Liege kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Sint-Truiden will be asked about the last half hour all week.
Shogo Taniguchi 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Ilias Sebaoui 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.
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Leo Kokubo knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
Marked 9.25 — 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.
Marked 8.66 — 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sint-Truiden this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Taiga Hata 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.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
179% of the income goes out in wages at Sint-Truiden
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
Shogo Taniguchi 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Ilias Sebaoui 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.
Marked 8.45 — 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.
11 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
Marked 5.71. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sint-Truiden can pretend not to have heard.
26 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sint-Truiden this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Shogo Taniguchi 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at Sint-Truiden training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Taiga Hata 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 Sint-Truiden this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Sint-Truiden training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ilias Sebaoui 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.
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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 26 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Shogo Taniguchi 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.
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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Ilias Sebaoui 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.
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.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Keisuke Goto, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.73
A mark of 8.73 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.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.11 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sint-Truiden this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Taiga Hata 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.
0‑3 against Anderlecht, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Shogo Taniguchi 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Ilias Sebaoui 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sint-Truiden this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Sint-Truiden training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ilias Sebaoui 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.
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.
20 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Antoine Lejoly, and the manager let it.
Squad7 Sep 2026
14 new faces, and Sint-Truiden are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 16 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Charleroi the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Sint-Truiden will enjoy reviewing.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Keisuke Goto did not need any: 8.43, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The chase for Tristen Alliet ended with $240.0K changing hands and KV Kortrijk out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Shogo Taniguchi 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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sint-Truiden this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Sint-Truiden training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ilias Sebaoui 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.
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad24 Aug 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Shogo Taniguchi'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.
Dino Arslanagić arrives at 33 with nothing left to prove and plenty left to pass on. Legs are a young man's currency; knowing where to stand never ages.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Einar Galilea is living that version at Sint-Truiden, and it tends to show in the first month.
Shogo Taniguchi 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Ilias Sebaoui 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Shogo Taniguchi. 2‑1 against Waasland-Beveren, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Oumar Diouf 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.
Shogo Taniguchi 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Sint-Truiden training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Taiga Hata 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.
Abdel Lamanje is 36 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
The offer from Famalicao for Oumar Diouf 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Antoine Lejoly is living that version at Sint-Truiden, and it tends to show in the first month.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Shogo Taniguchi and Sint-Truiden agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sint-Truiden this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Sint-Truiden training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ilias Sebaoui 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.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Kaito Matsuzawa was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.88. 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.