In lower divisions, circumstances may occasionally prevent a team from showing up, but in professional football, this must have been a one-off. Disgruntled supporters blocking their own team’s player bus so that they cannot show up for the match. We mostly watched and witnessed this bizarre Liege situation.

KVC Westerlo

Last home game of the season coming up. Time to take a moment to reflect on what has taken place in the past 19 encounters.

• 5x wins: Kortrijk (1-0), Eupen (2-0), RWDM (3-0), Cercle Brugge (4-2) and Standard (2-1)
• 5x draw: STVV (3-3) and (2-2), Genk (1-1), Standard (3-3) and OHL (1-1)
• 9x loss: Club Brugge (0-1), Gent (1-3) and (0-3), KV Mechelen (2-3), Antwerp (0-3), Union (1-3), Anderlecht (1-3), OHL (0-3) and Charleroi (0-1)
• Westel’s top shooter at the Kuipje was Nicolas Madsen with his 7 goals, Griffin Yow managed to score 5x and Frigan and Stassin could push 3 each against the nets.
• In total, we scored 27x and gave up 36 goals.
• Five times the ball was put on the dot in our favour, Madsen scored 4 and Yow 1.

After the game, the Kemphaan of the season will be elected. Who this will be is still a big question mark. Looking at the whole season, the following nine players could claim a starting place: Bolat, Reynolds, Bayram, Neustädter, Bos, Sydorchuk, Piedfort, Madsen and Yow. Will the winner come from this group? Or will it come from the group of players who also made a lot of minutes, but skippered between base and bench: Tagir, Rommens, Haspolat, Van Den Keybus, Stassin and Frigan also a chance to take home this coveted trophy – chosen by the supporters’ associations.

Of the last five mutual encounters at the Kuipje, only once was won by our Kemphans. In the previous encounter – last August – we were well ahead with a 2-0 lead in minute 75, but 10 minutes later our provincial rivals had already made up this deficit and even went on and on about it.

KV Mechelen

A brilliant series was set by the Maneblussers between January and March. No less than eight games in a row without defeat and only the last game of the regular competition was lost.

Started in these Europe Play Offs as challenger to AA Gent, but the 0/6 against both STVV and Gent was too much to compete for a place in the finals.

So relaxed play is definitely in the cards. Will Hasi opt to bring in some new boys or will he take to the Kempen with his strongest eleven so that he can avoid an 0/9 before leading his last game for them next week.

The trio Schoofs – Mrabti and Hairemans are the players who can provide the fine statistics, with 14, 14 and 10 participations in the Mechelen goals respectively. Watch out also for right wing Patrick Pflücke, he already scored against us earlier this season and also managed to provide 2 assists.

At Mechelen, they are also looking for a new coach. Besnik Hasi is listed with a bullet to become coach of KRC Genk and the names of Carl Hoefkens and Jonas De Roeck are mentioned as his successors. Most likely, we will be able to read more news about that next week as well.

Mechelen is also the team that scores most often in the second half. No less than 72% of their goals fell between minutes 45 and 90.

Matonga Simonini

Nice of the lords of the Football Association to give Matonga another chance, after his debut in the top division last week, had to be postponed because home club Standard were unable to take the pitch on time. Instructive entry was this for the 29-year-old Brussels referee I would say.

Text and statistics: Peter Boons