Compliments to the team

With nice adult football, high pressure and the neutralize of Union’s key players, our Kemphanen have managed to control this game. A lucky goal by Lukas Van Eenoo made for an early 0-1. Afterwards, the tactical play was so good that Union could only handle the long ball. In between, a strong playing Koen Van Langendonck held us at crucial moments in the game and Igor Vetokele finished at the very end with his first league goal.

Unfortunately, the value of this match had disappeared a little. Fighting for the honour, that was in it on this evening. By the way, within 3 weeks we will make this trip again, but then it will be a real cup match.

Our coach gave some players their chance. Koen Van Langendonck, Souleymane Kone, Christophe Janssens, Kader Keïta and Stephen Buyl got a basic place in this game.
And they fought. The first best chance was immediately there. In the changeover Christophe Janssens, Kurt Abrahams saw himself all alone. Kurt made his meters, gave a good pass to Christian Brüls and he gave a frivolous pass to Buyl. Stephen found the occasional captain Lukas Van Eenoo on his way and he shot the ball through Vega’s foot into the Brussels goal (0-1). Even though this was a lucky goal, the preparation was of a high level.

A minute later, the score could have doubled. With a bad Union pass, Christian Brüls just got the ball in his foot, but with the shot he delivered he could have done a lot more.
Union had one good chance in the first half, but Casper Nielsen shot the ball in the side net.

In the second half you could see once again that all of us are in tune with the ideas of our staff of trainers. A good ball circulation, so that at certain moments you can enjoy playing soccer. By the way, the coach of Union mentioned us at the press conference as the best soccer team of the series. What are we still missing? That extra 15% as Bob Peeters put it. At a certain moment we get a free kick, where Union in the transition is very dangerous. Making a professional mistake is the only solution to get the rhythm out of that attack. It wasn’t done, and fortunately Koen Van Langendonck was sublime in his acting, or the tie would have been a fact. In the next phase, the stadium screamed for a penalty kick, Kader pushed the Brussels attacker off his feet, but referee Dierick didn’t go along with it.
After that it all got a little bit more acrimonious. The bank of Union was completely excited and that was also reflected in the players on the field. At first a scandalous offence against Kurt Abrahams was only punished with yellow, but in the next offence substitute Ahannach was immediately pushed under his nose with the red card.

In between we could have made the game our own. Christophe Janssens had the opportunity to fold the game, but his shot was parried by Saussez. Lukas also had another chance in the rebound, but that one was swept off the line again.
In the last second Bryan Van Den Bogaert delivered a good cross to Igor Vetokele, who managed to get the ball into the goal (0-2).
A well-deserved victory for our Kemphanen, who in turn filled up some confidence in the second period.

KVC Westerlo: Van Langendonck, Dewaele, Kone, Soumah, Janssens (73′ Remmer), Keita, Van Eenoo, Brüls, Abrahams, Buyl (63′ Van Den Bogaert), Vetokele

Union SG: Saussez, Vega (78′ Young), Kandouss, Perdichizzi, Kis (45′ Hamzaoui), Mehlem , Teuma, Nielsen (63′ Ahannach), Tabekou, Ferber, Fixelles

Goals: 13′ Van Eenoo (0-1), 92′ Vetokele (0-2)

Yellow cards: Ferber, Teuma, Hamzaoui, Janssens en Abrahams

Red card: Ahannach

Teksts.