Round 22 has been added to the history books! 8 more rounds to go in the Jupiler Pro League. The results on themselves weren't full of surprises, but we do have now again a better insight in the competition!

Champions

Were at the moment there is only one favorite left to lift the trophy at the end of the season! Club Brugge did win once again and has now a lead of 10 points. Regardless of the fact that this lead will be halved at the start of the play offs, I just can't see a team which really could endangour Brugge!
Anderlecht wasn't bad but that even wasn't enough to make Brugge sweat!
I do give Club Brugge at the moment 90% of being crowned the new Champions!

Play off 1 group

After round 22 it looks that 7 teams will battle out who will join Brugge in PO 1. So 7 teams for 5 spots!

Genk maybe had the best weekend of this peleton! They did win easily away at Zulte Waregem and for the first time since long they are standing within the top 6. But they still have a lot of work left to secure this place. The next 4 games will be crucial for them. All next 4 games are played against teams which are within the top 6. To keep their dreams alive they should win at least 2 of them! In the other remaining 4 games, they still have to face KV Mechelen and Club Brugge. So 6 games from the last 8 are against PO I candidates!

Waregem who did loose against Genk and did get a big dent in their PO I dreams. They are now chasing position number 6 with only 3 points. But number 7 also has an advantage of 3 points. But the remaining calender looks a little bit easier for them than Genk! But it looks that they do have a real form dip, with only 1 win out of the last 5 games, while the other 4 were lost!

Maybe KV Mechelen has the best chance out of these 3 teams, with only 3 games out of the remaining 8 against other PO1 candidates. But their next game is a crucial one at home against Charleroi!

I do consider that Gent, Antwerp and Charleroi won't give their PO 1 ticket away anymore. Standard has still more than 60% chance of reaching PO 1. While their play wasn't impressive and the winner was scored once again in the dying minutes of the games, they still have a 4 points bonus on their challengers. With only 8 games left (24 points) this is a masive bonus!

Relegation

Just like at the top of the League, we also have only one big favorite at the bottom. Well favorite maybe is a misplaced term. Who wants to be the favorite to relegate?

Cercle Brugge had an excellent chance of bringing back some tension into the relegation battle! In their home game against Antwerp they did get the fastest penalty ever in Belgium. After just 8 second they did get a penalty which was converted. It even got better for them when Antwerp did get a red card after just 7 minutes. But all of this fortune wasn't enough for them because Antwerp did win with 10 players.

They are now 7 points below a safe place. While Oostende isn't great either, maybe even does place worse! I don't see Cercle moveing up a place into a safe harbour!

Anderlecht

Well we can't write a post about the Jupiler Pro League without mentioning Anderlecht, can we?

Well after another loss the regular season for Anderlecht is more or less over. They are now 7 points behind PO1. So after missing out on European Football they will miss out on playing PO 1 for the first time in the Play Off history in the Belgium Jupiler Pro League.

Their play against Club Brugge was promising but they just did loose too many points in the beginning of the season. While they don't have any chance anymore to qualify for PO 1, they still will have a impact on who will reach PO 1 or not. KV Mechelen and Zulte Waregem are warned!

Cheers,
Peter