The hell of Sclessin lived up to its name last Saturday. In a swirling stadium, our Kemphanen experienced a nightmare. Standard was supreme and showed them every corner of the pitch. The people from Liège won practically all duels and made our boys run after an elusive ball. Let’s go from hell to heaven’s Kuipje then. The next battle is coming up tomorrow against Kortrijk.

KVC Westerlo

Goalkeeper Nick Gillekens replaced the yellow-suspended Sinan Bolat last weekend. He was given a 6/10 in the media, along with Pietro Perdichizzi (5.5/10) and Tuur Dierckx (5/10), as the only one to receive a positive mark for his performance at Standard. Tuur was allowed to start in the starting line-up for a long time (13 January), but he will not have really enjoyed it.

With Kortrijk, we will face an opponent that suits us better at home than away. At the Kuipje we achieved a smooth 18/27 (5 wins, 3 draws and one defeat), while in West Flanders we could win oddly or rarely (10/33).

This week we turned our eye to the Pro League statistics, and have a lot of interesting know-it-alls:

• In terms of goals (53), we are in third place, behind Genk and Union.
• We have kicked 126 goals in total. That puts us in 7th place. Leader here is Club Brugge, who kicked 26x more goals than us.
• Our Kemphans are at the top in terms of running into offside. 60x they whistled us back, while leader Anderlecht saw this happen 70x.
• 293 successful tackles we have already deployed, Ostend are best in class here (349). This puts us in only 14th place.
• At the very bottom we are in terms of duels won, 1207 duels we won, which means we won 65 duels less than the penultimate Eupen.
• When it comes to successful passes, we are at the top again. After the G5 we are second, with 10426 successful passes.
• We are also doing very well in terms of crosses. Only Zulte Waregem does better with only one more.

KV Kortrijk

The Chaps changed coaches during the winter break. German Bernd Storck came to the helm, after he himself was kicked out by Eupen. Storck therefore knows what it means to win at Kuipje. On 28 August, he and his team came, like a thief in the night, to take home the 3 points. The moment he took over, the VeeKaa were stationed at place 17 with 4 points behind the safe number 15 spot. Currently, they are in position 14 with 4 points ahead of number 16, in other words, the new coach has done a good job.

Japanese defender Watanabe is the only player to have featured in all 28 matches. Behind him comes captain Kristof D’Haene with 22 basic selections. Kristof decided some time ago that he will quit professional football after this season, due to persistent injuries. The two players scoring the most are Faïz Selemani (8) and Felipe Avenatti (7). For Avenatti, it is his second passage at Kortrijk. In 2018/2019, he had a real peasant year by scoring 15 goals in one season. A transfer to Standard followed, with loan spells to Antwerp, Union and Beerschot where he got to barely 19 basic appearances with 4 goals in 3 seasons at all those clubs. Clearly, the Uruguayan feels best in Kortrijk’s wages.

The other players who lost to Charleroi by the smallest score last matchday were goalkeeper Vandenberghe, defenders Mehssatou and Atemona. Midfielders Tanaka and Kadri and in the attacking positions Massimo Bruno and Regali.

Did you know:

• Courtrai went on to win at Standard last month 0-2
• 64% of their goals fall in the second half
• They score more on the move (20) than in their home games (13)
• Have only failed to score once in 13 of 14 games played in the away games (last month at STVV)

Wesli De Cremer

On matchday 1 (Cercle Brugge 2-0 win), De Cremer was already a guest at the Kuipje. After that, he was also our matchkeeper at Antwerp (3-0) and Cercle Brugge (0-1). In total, this will be his 14th match for our Kemphians. 4x wins, 3x draws and 7x defeats are the verdict here.

Did you know:

• -Viki, Wesli’s sister, is also a referee in our national series and was recently the fourth official in the Challenger Pro league match between Deinze and RSCA Futures, becoming the first female referee in Belgian professional football.

Text and statistics: Peter Boons