Preview RUSG – KVC Westerlo

The Canaries from Sint-Truiden came to take the points on a steal at Kuipje last weekend. What follows now is an English week. Three games in a row. We start with an away game to Union. The Brussels club are currently doing very well, both in league and in the Europa League they have recorded fine results.

KVC Westerlo

Our Kemphans fought back handsomely last week after trailing 0-2. Loss of concentration combined with youthful enthusiasm were behind the final goal that eventually tipped the balance in defeat.

The surprise in the line-up was that coach Jonas De Roeck left his central defender Rubin Seigers on the bench. For the Limburger, this was the first time since his arrival at Kuipje – leaving aside a cup game against Liège last season – that he had to keep a seat warm on the bench. Before that, he was in the starting line-up for 47 consecutive games without being substituted.

His place was taken by Turkish Wall Ravil Tagir, who was rested the week before.

Brazilian Lucas Mineiro – partly due to injury – was also not on the match sheet, he was replaced by the man with Champions League experience Roman Neustädter.

Nacer Chadli did start the match, but had to leave the pitch with a minor injury after only about 10 minutes.

Maxim De Cuyper tripled his goal difference after his two goals, moving into second place in our team of “goal participation”. The Max has a percentage of 26% and only Lyle Foster does better with his 30%.

Last week we had it recorded that we are the team with the least number of cards, in the game against STVV three players suddenly got a yellow card shoved under their noses, all three then for dissenting behaviour.

Did you know?

– Three players in our core have also worn the Union jersey

– Mathias Fixelles so have played 130 games, Pietro Perdichizzi 104x and Edi Jordanov 25x

– We have a 21% win ratio against Union. In the previous mutual encounters, we won 4x, played draw 4x and lost 11x.

– With De Cuyper, Chadli, Madsen and Reynolds, we still have 4 contenders in our ranks who could possibly go with us to Qatar.

Bram Van Driessche

He has already been able to lead 16 matches to a successful conclusion this season. Not only in the Jupiler Pro League (11 times), he has also been a match official at international level. So he whistled the international match between Kazakhstan and Slovakia, the Youth League match AC Milan against Chelsea was also for him and then he also featured in 3 Conference League matches.

For both teams, it is the first time they have faced him this season.

The last time we had him was in March 2021 when we went on to draw 1-1 in Seraing.

For Union, he has already whistled a total of 7 matches, noteworthy here is that this was 6x on loan.

Only once before was he at the Stade Joseph Mariën. Six years ago, Union lost then against Seraing (1-2).

Union Sint-Gillis

Together with Club Brugge, the Brussels club is currently our national pride in foreign football. In their Europa League group, they are simply in first place in a group with 1.FC Union Berlin, Sporting Braga and Malmö FF. No less than four wins and one draw (the match against Berlin had not yet started at press time).

When you know they went on to win at Union Berlin, who are currently first in the German Bundesliga ahead of FC Bayern Munich, you know they have a strong team.

As a matter of fact, they showed that last weekend in their match against Club Brugge, when they came back with 10 to 11 after trailing 0-2.

Ex-Red Devil Karel Geraerts is doing a handsome job in Union and is simply continuing the work of the past few years. Despite seeing a defining player like Deniz Undav go to parent club Brighton, the results do not suffer.

Only the home game against Genk was lost (1-2) and the away games against KV Mechelen (3-0) and Antwerp (4-2).

In all other matches, points were taken and goals were scored.

Thirteen different players already found their way to the goal. Dante Vanzeir (7), captain Teddy Teuma (4) and Ivorian Simon Adingra (4) are the three players who scored the most, but also the three players who provided the most assists.

Five players were allowed to start in each match – if deployable. These are goalkeeper Anthony Moris, defenders Christian Burgess and Siebe Van Der Heyden, midfielder Lazare Amani and striker Dante Vanzeir.

Did you know?

– They celebrated their 125th anniversary on 1 November this year and a veritable history book was launched

– This date is identically the same as the founding of top Italian club Juventus FC.

– It had been 58 years since they had once played European football and the opponent at the time was Juventus.

– They scored more in the second half (58%) than in the first half (42%)

Text and statistics: Peter Boons