interactions. Anderlecht ‘dominated the match’, festive atmosphere at the ‘Fairy Tale’ union

Wesley Hoodt was disappointed after the match. “We are controlling this match, but it does not benefit us,” said the Dutch defender. “In their own way they take a lot of points. But we lacked enough offensive motivation. I think we were there defensively. They created chances on the counters, but we didn’t concede anything. That goal against we shouldn’t and we should blame ourselves.”

He was joined by his goalkeeper Hendrik van Kromburg. “We were very comfortable in the match, but we missed a lot of chances for Al-Ittihad. Looking back, we should be happy because only one goal was scored. Al-Ittihad is known as an organized block, and obviously we fought for it. We didn’t find the right spaces, certainly not In the opponent’s half. Possession is a nice thing, but we also have to convert it. The ball should have been spinning faster, not easy in this bumpy, dry field. But those are not excuses, we weren’t good enough.”

Party mood in Union

The striker did not score but was decisive again. “A wonderful feeling. We wanted to perform better than in the first matches against the best players. We managed it. An important match will follow against Antwerp. It was hard, we weren’t quite at our game. I think we had to switch sides more to create space. We had some tough times in the first half, but we were still ahead. We knew they had to come because they wanted to be in those playoffs, which gave us more space. We had better chances anyway. They had more possession, but they made too little and didn’t hurt us enough.”

Seppi van der Heyden is a former Anderlecht player. So the defender felt very good. “Winning a derby is always great. I’ve played for Anderlecht for a long time and that’s always something special. And a win for sure. The federation is truly indescribable, a fairy tale. We keep our momentum going, and that gives another boost. We give a little behind and stay a clean sheet again.” The result of everyone’s hard work, despite these two days of recovery.”