Rania Boutiebi leads Club YLA to cup final with winning goal in extra time: “Incredible to score the winning goal”

A celebrating Club YLA, with match winner Rania Boutiebi in the middle.

Women football Belgian Cup – semi-final: Club YLA – AA Gent 1-0 (nv)

A celebrating Club YLA, with match winner Rania Boutiebi in the middle. — © Bart Vandenbroucke

Brugge

Three times is a charm for Club YLA, which took the scalp of AA Gent in the semi-finals of the Belgian Cup on Saturday after two previous competition defeats. Rania Boutiebi scored the only goal of the match in the first extra time. Blauwzwart can look forward with great enthusiasm to the cup final on May 1 in Leuven against ‘home team’ OHL, which humiliated Zulte Waregem.

The third and most important ‘Battle of Flanders’ turned out in Club YLA’s favor this time. After ninety minutes the score was still on the board. The 20-year-old Rania Boutiebi scored the liberating and deserved goal of the qualification for blue-black in extra time.

© VDB

“A fantastic feeling to be able to score the decisive goal,” Rania Boutiebi reminisced. “However, we did not start the match well. In the first half, Ghent was better and more dangerous. To be honest, we actually got away with a 0-0 score at half time. In the second half we completely took over possession and became the better and most dangerous team. Without creating great opportunities, we put Ghent high. As the match progressed, I had the more and more feeling that we would take the victory.”

“After five minutes in extra time, we won the ball from our pressing and I was able to score from the box. It was pedaling without thinking. When you see that ball go in, a lot of stress disappears. There was still almost half an hour to play, so it was important to remain extremely concentrated. You could tell from everything that we weren’t going to give it away anymore and that turned out to be the case. That I was named ‘woman of the match’ by our manager Leo Van der Elst? Very nice to hear, but the victory was the credit of the entire team and staff.”

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