Last week’s most original title was: a donkey does not stumble twice at the same stone, but a Kemphaan apparently did at Dender.
A good start, with high pressing and some chances, yielded nothing and after the counter-goal it was again difficult to play against a low block and man-on-man defence.

KVC Westerlo

The team that produced fine results in recent weeks also just came to the kick-off in Dender.

As we mentioned in the intro, the start was excellent, but gradually we fell into the trap of tough Dender.

You have some of those opponents you don’t like as much, just add Dender Uit to the list this season.

A pessimist will say ‘another bad game’, as an optimist we say out of 31 games already played this season, we can pick out 6 that were less, percentage-wise this gives 19%. Not bad I would say for a team ranked 8th in terms of transfer market value. Then when you know we finished ninth in the regular season, you know a good job has been done.

In 6 away games so far they failed to score, including now twice at Dender.

Final conclusion: in the Europe Play-Offs, anything is possible, everyone is on a handkerchief from each other. Are we heading for an ‘unscripted drama’ here too?

Dogucan Haspolat and Luka Vuskovic, just the 2 players with the most minutes this season, had to leave the pitch early and it will be touch and go to get them ready to play by Saturday.

Should this not be the case, Sunday’s game-changers can prove in a home game that they too are ready to do battle.

OH Leuven

The Flemish-Brabanders have started with a draw in these POs. Back in December they won against Charleroi 1-0, now a glasses score was the final result.

1 month ago we were guests at the King Power @den Dreefstadion, and back then we had already noted that they are barely beatable at home, but mainly lose their points away from home. Only once did they manage to take home the three points, 5 months ago when they won 0-2 in Charleroi. Afterwards, 3 more draws and 6 defeats followed.

The team that drew against Charleroi last week consisted of:

– Goalkeeper Tobe Leysen, 30x base

– Right back Oscar Gil, 13x base, 1 goal

– Central defender Ewoud Pletinckx, 10x base, 1 goal, 1 assist

– Central defender Federico Ricca, 23x base, 1 goal

– Left back Manuel Osifo, 9x base, 1 assist

– Defensive Midfielder Birger Verstraete, 25x base, 3 assists

– Central Midfielder Ezechiel Banzuzi, 24x base, 2 goals, 5 assists

– Attacking Midfielder Siebe Schrijvers, 23x base, 4 goals, 3 assists

– Right winger Stefan Mitrovic, 16x base, 2 goals, 1 assist

– Left winger Thibaut Verlinden, 6x base, 1 assist

– Striker Chukwubuikem Ikwuemesi, 16x base, 4 goals

The total transfer market value of this squad comes to 27.1 million.

Referee

Bram Van Driessche has already refereed 18 Jupiler Pro League matches this season, 1 Challenger Pro League match, the Super Cup final and 1 Croky Cup match.

For Westerlo, he has already kicked off four times this season, each time away from home. We won at Mechelen and Standard, we lost against Antwerp and we drew 0-0 against … OH Leuven.

At Kuipje, he whistled four matches in the past: two wins and two defeats.

Text and statistics: Peter Boons