© BELGIUM
Cercle Brugge continues to dream of eighth place after the defeat against Antwerp. After an eventful week in which it asked for a meeting with the Referee Department for the umpteenth time, Cercle Brugge now wants to prove on the field that it belongs in the top eight and in the European play-offs. Winning against Sint Truiden on Saturday is now the first assignment.
Koen Verdruye
If there are in principle four candidates to finish eighth with Charleroi, Anderlecht, Cercle Brugge and OH Leuven, Cercle has the easiest program of the four with STVV at home and Zulte Waregem. But 6 out of 6 is not yet certain to make it because with 44 points, Cercle no longer has fate in its own hands. If Cercle does not make it, the last word about the fourteen penalty kicks against has certainly not been said yet. Even reputable analysts this week found that at most half were justified.
Control
At Cercle, people are firmly convinced that without all that setback and opposition they would have easily managed to finish in the top eight. The defeat at Antwerp and the controversial penalty kick for alleged handball by Thibo Somers reverberated for a long time, but coach Miron Muslic also knows that things don’t change.
“Of course I was and am also angry, but I am not a quitter but a perseverer and will do everything I can to get to that eighth place. Everyone at Cercle deserves this too. It was difficult for the group to deal with so much injustice, but I told them that they can also learn from that and it
part of their development. As a coach, I have to take the lead and lead by example. That is why I said immediately after Antwerp that we now have to concentrate on everything that we do have control over, and those are those matches against Sint-Truiden and Zulte Waregem. In the first round, Cercle won just before the World Cup break with the smallest difference over Stayen. Ayase Ueda then scored. “Just like us, STVV plays with a lot of energy and scored five times against KV Oostende last week, so we know what we have to do,” concluded Muslic.
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Gold shoe
Utkus, Sousa and Miangue will be out for a long time, but the Bosnian Austrian Olivier Deman can recover. He returns from suspension.
Incidentally, Deman, together with Denkey, Somers and Daland, is eligible to be declared best player of the season or Cercle’s golden shoe, via the 51st Pop-Poll of d ‘Echte, the fanatical circle of friends of green-black.
Deman can dispose. Everyone is eager to be at the kick-off, so I have positive choice stress. We still fully believe in our chances to take that eighth place. We are not counted out. Giving up is not in my dictionary.
