Saturday night proved the value of Steven Defour to Standard Liège. Without him, Liège crashed at home, 3-1, to bottom club Eupen. It was a second victory for the club from the German-speaking region of Belgium, after their bizarre 6-0 win over St Truiden a few weeks ago. The Italian owners must be … enjoying this.
Eupen owed their victory to two goals in the first 20 minutes from striker Kevin Vandenbergh. Young Kevin, now aged 27, was once seen as one of the greatest talents – as a goal poacher – in Belgian football. His main problem, though, is that he’s the son of legendary scorer Erwin Vandenbergh. It was Erwin who scored a memorable goal against Argentine in 1982, was top scorer in Europe in 1981 while with Lierse and scored hundreds of goals for Anderlecht and other clubs. Maybe Kevin can make a name for himself at Eupen and finally get out of Erwin’s shadow.
With Eupen winning, Charleroi hit the bottom place after losing to Mechelen. With staff leaving the club in droves, it will be interesting to see what owner Abbas Bayat will do next. He could re-hire his nephew I suppose.
Kortrijk thrashed Germinal Beerschot 4-0 and Beerschot coach Glen De Boeck must be wishing he has stayed at Cercle Brugge for a while longer. Hugo Broos is enjoying his new job in charge of Zulte Waregem; he had a 3-0 victory at St Truiden. Finally, Lierse shared the spoils with Lokeren but they did lose a 2-0 lead.
On to Sunday to see if Anderlecht without Boussoufa can do better than Liège without Defour.