Standard takes five at La Gantoise, the international break promises to be long – All football

After winning again at home last weekend, Standard looked to continue away. But the task did not look simple: because even if Ghent has not been in good shape in recent weeks, the trip to the Buffalos has not been good for Liégeois for several years (8 defeats in the last 9 matches, last victory in 2019).

For this meeting, Ivan Leko wanted to field the same team as the victorious Saint-Truiden but ultimately had to replace Henry Lawrence, who was ill, with Alexandro Calut, who had not started a championship match for two years.

The Gantoise much more biting

The visiting supporters welcomed their players with smoke bombs to set the tone, as if to push the team to display the same rage to win as in Sclessin. It started off very badly. With four minutes left, Matthieu has already had to work. On the corner that followed, his double save was not enough to prevent Watanabe from opening the scoring for Ghent.

Ivan Leko’s troops reacted by obtaining several opportunities, but Daniel Schmidt (who replaced Davy Roef, now a father) prevented Bosko Sutalo then Andi Zeqiri from equalizing. Before this famous duel between Calut and Noah Fadiga.

The Liégeois initially seemed the most affected, but it was Fadiga who collapsed late. Enough to cause panic at the edge of the field, in both camps. Zeqiri notably took a stretcher from the hands of local rescuers to go faster while Archie Brown began to pray. Fadiga finally got up but went straight to the hospital for tests.

The game has therefore resumed, but it is indeed the Standard who was unable to remobilize. Just before the break, La Gantoise made the break with a superb strike from Max Dean, who took advantage of the passivity of the Liège defense to allow himself a confident move on the edge of the rectangle (42nd, 2-0) .

Groggy, the Rouches definitely left the meeting. Even the rest didn’t change anything, Archie Brown scoring the 3-0 from a corner, once again taking advantage of the opponent’s lack of responsiveness on a second ball from a corner.

Lack of confidence in recent weeks, La Gantoise has made a point of continuing to push, chaining together opportunities. The score thus rose to 4-0 at the hour mark: on a catastrophic recovery from Souleyman Doumbia (who replaced Calut at rest), Momodou Sonko collided with Epolo then the crossbar, but Max Dean followed well to score a double.

The people of Ghent did not need to force themselves in the last quarter of an hour, Standard even conceded a fifth and final goal following an error by Matthieu Epolo in added time. The Rouches would have spent the break in the top 6 in the event of a victory, the next few days on the contrary promise to be very long.