Team in form AA Gent has qualified for the Cup final for the sixth time in its club history. In Bruges, it completely rectified the lopsided situation in the first leg. Thanks to Odjidja, Castro-Montes and Depoitre it even became 0-3 in the Jan Breydel Stadium.
Club Brugge – AA Gent in a nutshell:
- Key moment: Eight minutes after the break, Odoi loses his composure after a draw error by Tissoudali. He takes revenge with a blow to the attacker’s face and takes his 2nd yellow card. Barely a minute later, Depoitre makes it 0-3. Two crucial minutes that decide the game.
- Man of the match: Vadis Odjidja created the ideal scenario for Ghent with his early, somewhat fortunate, goal. The midfielder continued to play at a high level against his ex-club afterwards. The highlight was his wonderful pass outside the foot just past the hour, although Tissoudali forgot to put the icing on the cake.
- Efficiency: What Ghent lacked in the first leg, it had in abundance tonight. With some luck, the first shot on goal immediately resulted in a goal and the 0-2 also fell from the sky. Two chances, two goals. It was in stark contrast to the many misses in the first leg.
- Remarkable: Few as painful for Club as losing against the rivals from Ghent and just that happened today for the 3rd time this season. After the 6-1 blamage in the Ghelamco Arena at the end of August, Club also lost the competition game on their own field. The 3rd defeat is without a doubt the most painful for Club.
Dream start gives Ghent wind in its sails
1 minute and 42 seconds. It took that long until Club had already lost its lead from the first leg. Vanaken headed the ball away on a free kick by Kums and Odjidja scored in one go on the edge of the sixteen. His volley deviated from N’Soki and left Mignolet without a chance. With some luck, but Ghent did get its dream start.
Club immediately pulled out all the stops and pushed Ghent back. After a wonderful pass from Vanaken, Skov Olsen just couldn’t reach the ball well enough to threaten Roef. Just after fifteen minutes, Vanaken himself missed the opportunity to take advantage when the Ghent goalkeeper played the ball right into his feet.
Immediately afterwards, Roef was on the right track when Adamyan scored centrally on a pass from the very industrious Skov Olsen. Gent stood by and turned towards it. The visitors were not disappointed and could be happy that Club didn’t take anything from a series of corner kicks.
The 0-2 came out of the blue ten minutes before half time. Mignolet was able to parry a distant shot from De Sart, but was then surprised by a nice lob from Castro-Montes. A cold shower for Club and it almost became 0-3. After a measured cross by the same Castro-Montes, Depoitre’s header landed on the post.
Red for Odoi gives Club the death blow
Food for thought for Schreuder and co during halftime and after 10 minutes in the second half, Bruges’ worries became even bigger. Odoi took his second yellow card after a blow to Tissoudali’s face and immediately afterwards Club had to take another blow. Samoise found Depoitre’s head and he made it 0-3 with a good header.
A great uppercut for Club Brugge. The home team tried with the courage of despair and a series of substitutions to make something of it, but it only resulted in frustration. It almost even became 0-4 when Odjidja launched Tissoudali with a lovely pass outside of the foot, but face to face with Mignolet, who missed the opportunity.
It was a long agony for Club, Gent did not run into any more problems and advanced to the cup final for the 6th time. In this it will meet Anderlecht or Eupen. Club is left with a great hangover and now has to focus on the title fight.
Schreuder: “This shouldn’t get in the way”
- Hein Vanhaezebrouck (trainer Ghent): “We beat Club 6-1 in August, we beat them again afterwards and in fact we should have beaten them 4-1 in the first leg of the semi-finals. So this is not a sudden discovery for us. had to miss a lot of people in January and gave away many points unnecessarily. In the competition we are now with the knife to our throats and we can hardly give anything away anymore. We are going to tackle that week by week and try to win every match. “It doesn’t matter who we meet in the cup final. It will probably be Anderlecht, they are a lot stronger than Eupen and play at home. We played a very good game here tonight, it was a confirmation of the qualities of my players.”
- Alfred Schreuder (coach Club Brugge): “We didn’t create many chances. I thought we played well in the first half and continued the line from last Sunday. We put great pressure on and were also good in the build-up. But with that first goal we just make a huge mistake. you can’t fall behind so quickly against a team like that and luckily that second goal fell in. We were too restless at the time and should have held the ball. We went 0-2 After that red card and that 0-3 it became difficult, of course. We know that Ghent is a very good team and that they will certainly still be in the competition play a role. We have to deal with this quickly, normally this should not creep up on us. We have to learn from this and show character. We know what we have to do in the competition.”
