Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Antwerp waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Union SG is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Jackson Muleka 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.
The phone has started ringing about Marc Giger again, and this time the name on the line is Lierse. Union SG are listening politely and promising nothing.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Besfort Zeneli was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
7 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Union SG is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Union SG this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout28 Jun 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Fedde Leysen'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.
Squad28 Jun 2027
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 14 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 accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Mohammed Fuseini was one of the reasons people came, and $19.1M does not replace that by itself.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Jackson Muleka wants continental football; whether Union SG can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not 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 Union SG this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Union SG asked and Angers SCO said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Words at Union SG training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Besfort Zeneli 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.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
The words a physio says slowly. 23 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 Union SG people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Position 3, 49 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
The offer from Olympic Charleroi for Kevin Mac Allister 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Union SG this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
32 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Union SG lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The offer from Racing Genk for Mohammed Fuseini 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Union SG have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The deal with Lierse 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Union SG can pretend not to have heard.
Add another name to the list: Eupen have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Anouar Ait El Hadj. The answer from Union SG has not changed — yet.
Jackson Muleka 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Seraing have kept their man, and Union SG go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Union SG will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Jackson Muleka 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.
At 21 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.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad31 May 2027
Words at Union SG training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Besfort Zeneli 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.
The dugout31 May 2027
Fedde Leysen is still being punished for one mistake
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.
Nobody at Union SG 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Anouar Ait El Hadj trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Qualification is done, and next season the floodlights come on for something bigger. A stage for the players, oxygen for the accounts and a passport for everybody else.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 22 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Union SG had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Union SG can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Union SG can pretend not to have heard.
Nobody at Union SG 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Rafael Devisate trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Union SG. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
The language is arriving, the jokes are landing, and there is somebody at the next peg to talk to. None of it appears in a scouting report and all of it shows up on the pitch.
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Kevin Mac Allister plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.
Jackson Muleka 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.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Kevin Mac Allister trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Union SG know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Union SG will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Union SG. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
The language is coming and there is somebody to talk to in the dressing room. A footballer who feels at home plays like one, and it never shows up in a scouting report.
Jackson Muleka 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.
12 clean sheets from 31 appearances at FC Eindhoven. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
Nobody at Union SG 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Kjell Scherpen signs something — a contract at Union SG or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Hervé Koffi has written the date down.
Somebody to talk to at the next peg, a few words of the language, and a training ground that has stopped being a foreign country. It never appears in a scouting report and it decides most signings.
The coaching staff have set Serhiy Sydorchuk something separate to do. Whether it is a weakness being addressed or a strength being sharpened, nobody outside the building will know until it shows up on a Saturday.
30 appearances at FC Eindhoven and the goals have stopped going in. Union SG lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
Nobody at Union SG 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.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Union SG that is a harder question to answer.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Jackson Muleka’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
“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 Union SG, and it is not being withdrawn.
Position 3, 49 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Nobody at Union SG 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Union SG, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Union SG know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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 Union SG have no good answer.
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Kjell Scherpen plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Union SG know it.
5 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.
Nobody at Union SG 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 conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Hervé Koffi has written the date down.
Kevin Mac Allister 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 have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Union SG know it.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Vic Chambaere has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
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 Kevin Mac Allister is on it.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Ross Sykes has moved up it.
10 clean sheets from 26 appearances at FC Eindhoven. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
Nobody at Union SG 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Union SG know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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 Union SG 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.
“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 Union SG, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Union SG this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Union SG know it.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Nacer Boyata is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Charles De Ketelaere has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Dries Onana has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Nobody at Union SG 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.
Jackson Muleka 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Louis Varela is living that version at Union SG, and it tends to show in the first month.
Louis Varela is 20, and Union SG have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
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 Mohammed Fuseini is on it.
Ross Sykes 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.
“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; Union SG are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Besfort Zeneli will call it something else in private.
The dugout8 Mar 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Thorgan Mignolet kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
In brief
MarketVic Chambaere returns from a loan that taught him nothing
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Union SG can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Union SG this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 91. Standard Liege had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
23 appearances at FC Eindhoven and the goals have stopped going in. Union SG lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Union SG will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Union SG can pretend not to have heard.
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 is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Jackson Muleka wants continental football; whether Union SG can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Kjell Scherpen 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.
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.
Kevin Mac Allister 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 have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Union SG can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad15 Feb 2027
5 new faces, and Union SG 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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Thorgan Mignolet could afford to be generous.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 40 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
8 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.
Jackson Muleka 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 have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Union SG can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. KAA Gent have kept their man, and Union SG go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Union SG will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and TOP Oss waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Union SG is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Union SG have paid $3.8M for Aimé Omgba, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Union SG may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Union SG close the window on a squad of their own making
3 in and 8 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Union SG hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
“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 Union SG, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Union SG people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Beerschot have kept their man, and Union SG go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Jackson Muleka was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $61.4M. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Promise David was one of the reasons people came, and $21.2M does not replace that by itself.
$960.0K was the most the club would pay and Cercle Brugge were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Promise David had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Union SG 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 Union SG can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from Seraing for Fedde Leysen 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.
$1.2M was the most the club would pay and Standard Liege were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.2M — a club that wants Salieu Drammeh enough to be asked twice.
$14.8M on the table at Konyaspor. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Levski have kept their man, and Union SG go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Union SG had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
Union SG have gone to Standard Liege 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.
The name of Anouar Ait El Hadj has come up in conversations Union SG 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 Union SG this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Position 2, 37 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Two sides from the top of the table, one afternoon, and a month of talk decided in ninety minutes. Union SG will not use the word title this week and will not stop thinking it.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Union SG training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Anan Khalaili 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.
“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 dugout28 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Thorgan Mignolet was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Union SG dressing room was either.
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Union SG are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Successful dribbles: 32. 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.
12 goals and a season average of 7.25. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Promise David was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.00. 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 general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Anan Khalaili 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.
The first defeat in 12 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against KAA Gent; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Union SG can pretend not to have heard.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Union SG know it.
Ivan Pavlić 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.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.13 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Union SG have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Union SG this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
30 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
A 3‑1 win over Cercle Brugge, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Kevin Mac Allister wants continental football; whether Union SG can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Successful dribbles: 19. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Promise David was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.42. 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.
Marked 8.40 — 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 mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Union SG are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
1 for Serhiy Sydorchuk, marked 6.17, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Besfort Zeneli. 2‑1 against Dender, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Kevin Mac Allister 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 else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Union SG can pretend not to have heard.
Kevin Mac Allister 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.
“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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Anan Khalaili 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.
“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 Union SG, and 0 appearances in 13 say he has earned the hearing.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Hervé Koffi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Union SG has been clear about where Kamiel Van De Perre stands, which is more than many ever get.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Fedde Leysen is still being punished for one mistake
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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 6 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Guilherme Smith 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Anouar Ait El Hadj and Union SG agree another 4 years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Union SG this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
Player ratingsKevin Rodríguez was on a different afternoon to everybody else
SquadWords at Union SG training over how hard people work
5 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Four weeks in which nobody in the division did his job better. The award goes on a shelf and the player goes back into the side, which is the order Union SG prefer.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Kevin Mac Allister has come out of that comparison in the side, and Union SG have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Thorgan Mignolet could afford to be generous.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
The dugout26 Oct 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.” Thorgan Mignolet, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Anan Khalaili was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Kamiel Van De Perre’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Union SG needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“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 Union SG, and it is not being withdrawn.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
At 26 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Charleroi next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
Marked 8.25 — 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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Union SG know 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 Union SG this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
10 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.
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 Mohammed Fuseini is on it.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Louis Patris’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Union SG needing him to play as if none of it matters.
4 shut-outs in 5 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Michael Verrips has been having a lot of them.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Union SG know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
SquadMohamed Koné has seen what the next man earns
At 19 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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Union SG know it.
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.87 on the card, and the Union SG support went home talking about one name.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Hervé Koffi
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Two goals and a mark of 8.37 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.11 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Union SG can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Anan Khalaili in the middle of it, and RAAL La Louviere unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
Kevin Mac Allister 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 have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Union SG can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Kevin Mac Allister 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 point taken on 92 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
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.
A 1‑1 draw with Club Brugge leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Thorgan Mignolet was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Union SG dressing room was either.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Mohammed Fuseini has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mohammed Fuseini provided it, and the 9.06 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Union SG can pretend not to have heard.
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
10 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Botev Plovdiv had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
$4.1M was the most the club would pay and Charleroi were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 3 signed and 8 gone
That is the business done at Union SG until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Ivan Pavlić and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Union SG training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Anan Khalaili 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 used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Mohammed Fuseini obliged against Seraing. 1‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Union SG.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Mohamed Koné had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
The offer went to Charleroi this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Adem Zorgane was one of the reasons people came, and $7.4M does not replace that by itself.
“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 Union SG, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Novara for Guilherme Smith 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.
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.80, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
Union SG and Charleroi have settled on $3.6M. 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.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Serhiy Sydorchuk and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
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 1‑2 Thorgan Mignolet left the room before anybody could ask which.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Anan Khalaili 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.
He is going to Cercle Brugge, the club has $8.6M 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.
Serhiy Sydorchuk 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.
11 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.
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Raul Florucz scored in the 89th minute, KAA Gent had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Union SG took the lot.
The offer went to Standard Liege this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
The offer from Wycombe Wanderers for Mohammed Fuseini 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.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $2.4M — a club that wants Dennis Ayensa enough to be asked twice.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Michael Verrips has, at Union SG, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The offer from Sheffield United for Promise David 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.
The phone has started ringing about Marc Giger again, and this time the name on the line is Seraing. Union SG are listening politely and promising nothing.
The goal that put Zulte Waregem ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Union SG equalised, 1 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Union SG know it.