A week dominated by high-profile friendlies and European qualifiers ends with the beginning of the 2018/19 Belgian Pro League season. Standard Liege and Gent kick off the new campaign.

STATS

• Standard Liege were underwhelming last term as they just managed to squeeze into the top six which qualified them for the Championship Round. However, they thrived in the six-team challenge for the title, managing to finish 2^nd just three points behind Club Brugge. They also lost to the eventual champions in the Belgian Super Cup on Sunday.
• Gent finished two places above Liege in the regular season with six points more but a 4^th place finish in the Championship Round meant they had to settle for the Europa League. They had a great pre-season with eight wins and one draw in their nine non-competitive matches, the most recent was a 1-0 victory against Strasbourg.
• Orlando Sá was Standard’s most prolific goal scorer in the league last season with 10 goals, an improvement on that would be welcomed by the Belgian fans.
• With one less goal in the Pro League over the course of last season, Roman Yaremchuk was Gent’s top scorer, one of those came against Standard.

HEAD TO HEAD

There isn’t much to split Standard Liege and Gent and the meetings over the last couple of seasons support that with both sides winning two of the last six. It’s actually Standard who have won the last two consecutive fixtures after going on a run of eight without a victory against Gent. There have been over 2.5 goals in just one of those six matches which came in the last meeting in April where Standard came from 1-0 down to win 3-1.

ST. LIEGE NEWS

It’d be a perfect way to start to the season for Standard if they come away with all three points. They’ve survived pre-season without any injuries so go into the match in high spirits.

Latest matches: Standard Liege

22.07.2018	Supe	Club Brugge	Standard Liege	2:1	L
18.07.2018	Club	FC Tubize	Standard Liege	0:1	W
14.07.2018	Club	Celtic FC	Standard Liege	4:1	L
27.06.2018	Club	Waremme	Standard Liege	3:3	D
20.05.2018	Pro	Royal Charleroi SC	Standard Liege	0:0	D

GENT NEWS

No side would be happy with an away fixture as their opening game especially not against a strong side. Dylan Bronn and Moses Simon are out through injury despite the latter being very close to a return.

Latest matches: KAA Gent

23.07.2018	Club	KAA Gent	Racing Strasbourg	1:0	W
21.07.2018	Club	Oud-Heverlee Leuven	KAA Gent	0:2	W
12.07.2018	Club	PAOK FC	KAA Gent	1:1	D
06.07.2018	Club	KSV Oudenaarde	KAA Gent	1:3	W
29.06.2018	Club	Sc Dikkelvenne	KAA Gent	0:4	W

SUMMARY

As far as opening games of the season go, it’s very hard to pick a winner in this one. With home advantage, Standard Liege have to be considered as slight favourites but Gent should not be ruled out as they showed on numerous occasions last term. It’s expected to be a low-scoring game and one goal could quite easily decide the winner.