Playing well and rewarding yourself, finally succeeded this time. As they have done all season, our Kemphians assumed their own strength and crowned it with a (historic) win in Liege.  Man of the match Matija Frigan found his way to goal twice, thanks to brilliant preparatory work by his teammates.

KVC Westerlo

Once again, our technical staff delivered brilliantly. They had exposed the Liege ‘pain points’, opting to bring in a slightly more creative player (Josimar Alcocer) for the more defensive Arthur Piedfort. Before the match, we also saw coach Timmy Simons having a brief chat with his captain Roman Neustädter, then it became clear that the latter would have to cede his place in the centre of defence to the young trio Vuskovic – Bayram and Rommens. The hunger and eagerness in this group is great. A brilliant mentality our Kemphans put on the mat week after week. 

The match against Beerschot is perhaps the toughest hurdle to overcome. Anyone who follows football knows the situation they are in, conclusion: you can only lose, because everyone assumes the 3 points are in. Beerschot, by the way, is the team we have faced most often in our existence. They did change their name three times in all those years (AC – VA – VAC), the matches were always scheduled at the Kiel and they always played in mauve. So this will be the 60th meeting between them, and the 38th at the Kuipje. The statistics are practically balanced: 12x wins, 12x draws and 13 defeats. 

Two players must be careful not to miss the next match, at home against Club Brugge. Dust-keeper and brand-new captain Dogucan Haspolat and left-footer Tuur Rommens are both listed with 4 yellow cartons behind their names.  Bakary Haidara and Griffin Yow are working hard on their return and the 4 youngsters of the group: Zenzo De Boeck, Raf Smekens, Rhys Youlley and Julian Placias will take part with the U23 this weekend. Dire Mebude will then be employable again after his illness symptoms last weekend.

Beerschot

The Mannekens did have a different take on their start. On the opening day of play they still managed a draw against OHL (0-0), after that they closed every match with a defeat. Now their programme was not easy, as they faced Union, Cercle Brugge, Genk, Standard, Dender, Charleroi, Sint-Truiden and Antwerp respectively. You cannot sell the skin of the (Beerschot) bear before it is shot: with that mentality, they will also present themselves here at Kuipje.

In Beerschot’s player core, the most striking name is of course that of the coach, Dirk Kuyt. The Dutch icon played championship with this team last season and he knows very well our vice-president Hasan Cetinkaya and Team Manager Baturalp Soydas from their time together at Fenerbahçe. 

Captain is Ryan Sanusi and in defence we also see 2 familiar names. Hervé Matthys in the period between 2015 and 2017, featured 7 times in the Kemphians‘ shirt and Derrick Tshimanga got to don the Red Devils’ shirt for a match in Slovenia on a blue Monday in August 2011.

Recent quality additions included players from Paris Saint-Germain (right-back Colin Dagba), Nottingham Forest (central defender Loïc Mbe Soh), Ajax Amsterdam (left-back Ar’jany Martha) and Al Ittihad’s 2 Saudi internationals: Faisal Al-Ghamdi and Marwan Al-Sahafi.

Kevin Van Damme

The West Fleming could already be seen at Kuipje on the opening day of play against Cercle Brugge. At 34, he sits at 191 professional matches flown. 

The first time he came to the Kempen was on 15 October 2017, when he got to whistle the match against … Beerschot. That Sunday afternoon saw a glass-less result and also marked yours truly’s debut at the Pearl of the Kempen.  Since then, he made another 4 visits resulting in one win, one defeat and two draws.

Text and statistics: Peter Boons