Noah Fadiga collapses to the ground
It only takes four minutes of play to see the Ghent players break the deadlock on Liégeois. If Matthieu Epolo makes a superb save to save a shot from Mathias Delorge, Tsuyoshi Watanabe’s header from the following corner crosses the goal line by a few centimeters (1-0, 5th). Led and dominated, Standard still had several good chances against goal, but Boško Šutalo, Dennis Eckert and Andi Zeqiri in turn missed their attempts. Opposite, Momodou Sonko narrowly missed making the break by finding the crossbar with a powerful shot.
Shortly after the half-hour mark, the match was briefly interrupted due to a medical scare. Victim of a head collision with Alexandre Salut, Noah Fadiga collapsed to the ground, visibly inert and unconscious, before finally getting up to give up his place (37th). A few minutes later, Ghent doubled the lead via Max Dean, author of a superb mid-distance sequence to deceive Epolo (2-0, 41st).
The Rouches are sinking
Determined to defeat, Standard lacks aggressiveness and shows passivity. Following a corner, Archie Brown has plenty of time to deliver a sharp shot to kill the match (3-0, 51st). The people of Ghent are not satisfied and continue to press their opponent high. Souleyman Doumbia thus makes a mistake by sending a pass directly to Sonko, who finds the crossbar before seeing Dean add another goal (4-0, 59th).
The end of the match is very long for the Liégeois. Matthieu Epolo, despite having made several good saves, made a terrible concentration error at the end of the match by not catching a cross shot from Gilles De Meyer (5-0, 89th), which was not very dangerous.
The compositions:
Ghent: Schmidt – Samoise, Watanabe, Torunarigha, Brown – Ito, Delorge – Fadiga, Gandelman, Sonko – Dean
Liège Standard: Epolo – Hautekiet, Šutalo, Calut – Camara, O’Neill, Alexandropoulos, Price, Fossey – Eckert, Zeqiri
