Union SG – Royal Antwerp FC: 1-0 (Croky Cup)
Royal Antwerp FC traveled to the Stade Marien for the first leg of the Belgian Cup semi-finals. The two sides recently faced off in the Jupiler Pro League, with Union winning 2-0 at home. Yorbe Vertessen was immediately included in Karel Geraerts’ selection for this game.
From the first whistle, the match was extremely intense with many duels but very few chances. The game was very tight throughout.
In the first half, Union got most of the chances, but they couldn’t seem to find the finishing product. Thus, Lazare Amani came very close to opening the scoring on a deep ball from Loïc Lapoussin, but he failed to control the ball to capitalize on this chance. The two teams returned to the locker room at 0-0.
The second half was as closed as the first 45 minutes. The visitors circulated the ball well but couldn’t create any action. Yorbe Vertessen came on for Victor Boniface in the 76th minute, playing his opening minutes in yellow and blue. There was nothing worth remembering about this first match of the semi-finals, until our Unionists opened the scoring in the 83rd minute! A cross from Loïc Lapoussin to Bart Nieuwkoop, who deceived Butez with a beautifully placed header.
Antwerp struggled to react and couldn’t do anything in return. However, the battle is not over yet as our Unionists will travel to Antwerp on March 2nd for the return leg. Ticket information will be available soon.
The next game will again take place at the Joseph Marien Stadium, this time in the Jupiler Pro League against Zulte Waregem on Sunday at 19:15 p.m. Tickets are available through our ticketing site.
Allez l’Union !
