The last of the season is coming up. A season with more ups than downs. The start and the end were difficult, in between our sporting staff put our club back on the map. Superb football, spectacular results and a day-to-day fantastic atmosphere. Football in the Kempen is alive and thanks to Mr Oktay, the future is assured to continue competing in the highest ranks of football in the coming years.

KVC Westerlo

Against Gent there was more in it again, especially in that first half. The Gent goalkeeper held his team up when there were several chances, from which keeper Nacer Chadli was able to cash in on one, adding a nice goal to his record. Gent finished the second half in a businesslike manner, in what was otherwise a redundant game.

On Saturday we travel to Cercle, a revelation in these Play Offs. Last week we already said goodbye to three players: Igor Vetokele, Kouya Mabea and Tuur Dierckx. They will definitely not be there next season. Some other dossiers are still pending. The fact is that after this match, the holidays will (finally) begin. A long and tough season thus comes to an end.

Cercle Brugge

Nice results have been recorded by the greenies in these Europe Play offs. With an 8 out of 15, this puts them in second place. What is striking is that while they did not lose three games on the move, they could not win in their two home games, and did not even score a goal. While their crosshairs were set right no less than 11 times on displacement.

Now last encounter we also had similar statistics, and they blew us away with a 3-5 win. So caution is in order here. By the way, Cercle had a comment at the end of the season that they had been given too few penalties. In this mini-competition they have had the most: 3 of them, kicked in each time by their Japanese Ueda. 

Wim Smet

The Antwerp referee has already whistled four games for us this season, twice at home and twice on loan:

AA Gent – KVC Westerlo 2-1

KVC Westerlo – Anderlecht 2-1

Kortrijk – KVC Westerlo 0-2

KVC Westerlo – OH Leuven 1-2

If we look at his statistics over his entire professional career, we arrive at 24 games. Eight times he was present at Kuipje, with only one defeat, and sixteen times we got him on loan. We did score slightly lower with him there: five wins, five draws and six defeats. We did have a previous game at the Kuipje, on 31 January 2015, when we won 1-0 thanks to a goal from Dutch right-back Mitch Apau but a Cercle-Westel will also be the first time for him.

Text and statistics: Peter Boons