After 30 matches in the Belgian Pro League, the post season play off picture is complete. On a final day where there were plenty of permutations, the table remained as it had done at the beginning of the day. Sint Truiden and Cercle Brugge will join Kortrijk and Beerschot in the battle to avoid the drop. The latter are all but mathematically down, but will be able to play spoiler against the other three teams.
Cercle had the hardest game on paper against a top six side in Anderlecht. They fell behind early and could never quite get the equaliser, despite plenty of effort. Instead they succumbed to a 3-0 defeat, despite the fact that if they had managed to secure a point they would have swapped places with Dender and been guaranteed to play Pro League football next season.
Sint Truiden had to win to stay up, and faced an OH Leuven side who would have switched places with them if they had managed to do so. However, they fell behind to a fantastic strike from Siebe Schrijvers and ended up losing 3-2. They will certainly be frustrated with some of the decisions that went against them, with the deciding penalty being quite a controversial decision. However, by that point they had already been down to 10 men for 20 or so minutes after Rein Van Helden was sent off.
The bottom four now looks like this. Cercle Brugge are ‘top’ of the mini league with a one point advantage over Sint Truiden. They then have a gap of five points to Kortrijk, who kept their slim hopes of survival alive with a win over top six side Gent. Finishing first in the mini group means survival, while finishing second would see that side face off against the side who win the second tier’s play off system.
GBeNeFNÂ |Â Ben Jackson
