It was not Vanhoutte’s afternoon: the Union Saint-Gilloise fell back into its failings in Louvain

The international break seemed to come at the wrong time for the Union, who were stopped in their tracks after that 4-0 victory over Genk. Sébastien Pocognoli and his men therefore wanted to find this good dynamic against a Louvain team shaken by the dismissal ofOscar Garcia 48 hours before the meeting.

For this, Poco wanted to renew the same eleven as against Genk, but the injury of Koki Machida prevented him from doing so, which benefited Fedde Leysen, on the field to challenge his brother Tobe, the OHL goalkeeper. On the Louvanist side, Hans Somers sent William Balikwisha back to the bench, while Mickaël Biron was not included.

The Union is off to a good start

The locals started their match well, with crosses made very vicious by the violent wind which swept through Den Dreef. But it was Tobe Leysen who had the first save to make, in a duel with Promise David.

And he was also the one who turned around first. On a good outburst from Franjo Ivanovic, in all the good moves in the first period, Siebe Writers thought he was in the right place, but unfortunately deceived his goalkeeper by trying to clear the ball with his head (0-1.12).

A lucky goal which allowed the Union to gain confidence and settle into the match. The visitors quickly took the upper hand, with fairly high ball recoveries, a meticulous grid of the pitch and a lot of percussion on the sides.

But it was when the Saint-Gillois seemed in control, probably too much, that the Louvanists struck. On a seemingly harmless breakthrough from Ikwuemesi, Charles Vanhoutte made a mistake with an uncontrolled tackle from behind in his rectangle. Anthony Moris touched one of his first balls of the afternoon by searching in his net for the penalty kicked in the middle by Siebe Schrijvers, author of a goal for each team in the first act (1-1, 42nd ).

Aware of having purred a little too much, the unionist collective regained the initiative with several corners in a row in the final moments, then with a canceled goal of Promise David for an offensive foul on Leysen at the start of the second half. Sofiane Boufal’s rise to the game was also intended to energize the rest of the game.

But quite the opposite happened: faced with revanchist Louvanists, the Union encountered difficulties in carrying the danger offensively. She even got back into problems with the direct red card of Charles Vanhouttealready at fault on the penalty, approaching the last quarter of an hour for a clumsy and dangerous intervention on Siebe Schrijvers.

At ten, the Union had to settle for one point. In the event of a victory, the Saint-Gillois would have returned to the top 6 while awaiting the trip from La Gantoise to Anderlecht. Louvain could have even claimed better in the final minutes but remains in the red zone, however tied with Saint-Trond and Charleroi. The players offered their audience and their management the expected response.