This weekend we kick off the provisional final Europe Play Offs in the Jupiler Pro League. It was a long season for our Kemphans, which started brilliantly and ended well in the end. We finished just short of the left-hand column of the standings, but we did top the right-hand column.

Europe Play Offs

We made a numerical analysis of our opponents in this PO. If we list this season’s mutual duels, we see that Oud-Heverlee Leuven (19) and KV Mechelen (18) gathered the most points and are the biggest contenders for the final spot. Westerlo follows in a fine third place with 15 points gained.

KV Mechelen is the team that managed to score the most often. No fewer than 21 goals fell in these duels, with Westerlo in second place with 15 balls that shook the nets.

Each team scored more points in their own stadium, than on loan. Here, OHL is once again the greedy one. They managed to win 4 out of 5 games already, only against Westerlo did they have to concede a draw. 

Then again, the top shooter who runs around in our ranks. Matija Frigan scored five times, followed by Nikola Storm and Benito Raman of KV Mechelen, Daan Heymans of Charleroi and Andi Zeqiri of Standard with four goals. Dender who lost every game away from home and Charleroi managed to do so only once, the 1-3 against Westerlo. In terms of clean-sheets, OH Leuven (5) and KV Mechelen (4) are again the top duo.

The team in form is KVC Westerlo. Our Kemphanen have collected 14 points in their last 7 matches – only Genk and Union performed better – followed by Mechelen (11), Leuven (11), Charleroi (8), Standard (5), and Dender (4).

Referee

Kevin Van Damme refereed two matches this season – Cercle Brugge 3-0 and Beerschot 2-2 – at the Kuipje, and he was also our match referee at Union (3-1) and Kortrijk (1-2).

In 20 of the 30 match days, he was appointed by the Football Association to take charge of a match, with only Nicolas Laforge, Lothar D’hondt and Jasper Vergoote being allowed to whistle one more match than him. In those 20 matches, he sent eight players to the dressing room early, which earned him second place behind D’hondt.

Seven times he put the ball on the spot and he drew 87 yellow cards.

Text and statistics: Peter Boons