Belgium Cup, Final, Thursday, 09.05.2024
A soccer highlight is on the program in Belgium on Thursday, namely the Belgian Cup final! Could it be Mark van Bommel’s last as coach of a Jupiler League club for the time being?
In my Union St. Gilloise Antwerp tip, I won’t hide my personal opinion that the Antwerp ship is about to sink and that RUSG could now also benefit from this…
Mark van Bommel is another coach who has announced his intention to leave his current employer in the summer. Perhaps they all want to take time off for Euro 2024?
In any case, the Dutchman docked on the Antwerp coast in 2022 and promptly led the club from the bustling port city to the national double in his first season.
But now that his departure has been confirmed, the question is whether the ex-Bayern player will at least be able to say goodbye to Royal by winning the Belgian Croky Cup. The decision will be made on Thursday afternoon
However, van Bommel has not announced his departure without good reason. After all, the last few months have been the most bitter he has had to endure on the Antwerp bench.
The division of the league into championship and relegation groups – as is now common practice in many European leagues – has not done his team any good at all.
Royal Antwerp have now lost six of their last seven league games, impressively demonstrating that they are currently no match for the crème de la crème of Belgian soccer.
Among Antwerp’s recent poor results include a bitter 3-0 defeat against Royale Union SG at the end of April.
The upcoming opponents in the final thus overcame the “Reds” despite their guest appearance at the Bosuilstadion, and deservedly so.
Antwerp managed a subterranean xG value of just 0.17 for the entire match. Scoring goals is generally one of the problem areas for Van Bommel’s team, which is probably why the coach indirectly raised the white flag
Watch out: Antwerp have not been able to put more than one goal on the scoreboard in any of their last nine competitive matches.
The Reds’ path to the Belgian Cup final was not exactly paved with the names of high-caliber players, quite the opposite.
In the semi-final, they managed to get rid of the weakly performing second division side KV Oostende after a first and second leg, while they had previously only managed to brush aside a small Jupiler League side in Charleroi. Neither of these two successes know how to delight me!
Compared to that, RUSG’s path to the final was a real tour de force! After all, the fairy godmother couldn’t have rolled up any bigger chunks to make it more difficult for the royalists to reach the final.
Hold on to your hats: RSC Anderlecht awaited in the quarter-finals and Club Brugge in the semi-finals! Nevertheless, the club, which was still playing second division soccer a few years ago, managed to win through without extra time in both cases.
It is therefore completely understandable why the sports betting providers have clearly shown their colors with regard to Thursday by siding with St. Gilloise
The match will be played in neutral Brussels, but that hasn’t stopped reputable betting providers like Sunmaker from giving RUSG the role of favorite with odds of around 1.95.
On the other hand, the odds are almost exactly 3.30 both for a possible extra time and for what I consider to be a rather unlikely and not exactly lavishly quoted success for the weakening Antwerp team.
My odds tip: Take a look at the RUSG win odds at Bet365, which clearly stand out at 2.30! So either the bookmaking giant knows something we don’t, or it’s making a colossal mistake here!
Personally, I think the average odds of 1.95 offered on the betting markets worldwide for a Union win in regulation time are still attractive enough to even place a single bet.
The superiority over Antwerp in the aforementioned 3-0 win in the Jupiler League a few weeks ago was so clear that it seems unlikely that a completely different course of play will now emerge.
In addition, Royale Union SG have proved too strong for the Reds since the end of Antwerp’s double season! Of the last four competitive matches, none went to Royal Antwerp (2 draws, 2 defeats).
It is striking that the most recent duels on April 25 and 28, which went to Royal Union with 3:0 and 4:1 respectively,
Conclusion: Of course, you can’t just argue that a team “deserves” the trophy because they’ve managed to brush aside their stronger opponents so far.
However, I’d almost be horrified if Union-SG didn’t get the better of Antwerp on Thursday. There was simply far too glaring a difference in class in the two back-to-back games almost two weeks ago for that.
In addition, Antwerp’s form curve is too steeply downward to simply reject a great odds offer, as the bookmakers are currently making you for a RUSG victory.
My Union St. Gilloise Antwerp tip in this context is therefore very clear: Here with the great odds for St. Gilloise to win!
