RAAL La Louvière beat Kortrijk 3:0 in the Jupiler Pro League's regular season round six on Saturday. The hosts opened their account through Mustapha Isah Ubandoma and never looked back. By then the visitors had already begun to realise their evening was going badly.
Ubandoma struck in the seventh minute to give the home side an early lead. He added a second seven minutes before the break to double the advantage. The goal changed the shape of the match, though the visitors kept pushing forward.
I watched the whole game and remember the twentieth minute clearly. Kortrijk were passing sideways, trying to find a rhythm that wasn't there. They had the ball but not the intent.
The second goal came in the thirty-seventh minute, another finish from Ubandoma. The visitors created more attacks but struggled to turn possession into chances. And here's the thing — they were drowning the ball without finding a way through.
Kortrijk held 62 per cent possession and made 524 passes. They registered 151 attacks against 73 for the hosts. But shots on target told a different story: six to two. The visitors shot off target six times and hit the woodwork nowhere.
We had given 86 per cent confidence in a home win before kick-off. The prediction came good. The hosts paid for a sloppy opening by taking control, and the visitors never got out of second gear.
The result leaves Kortrijk bottom of the table with zero points from six games. RAAL La Louvière move up to four points and sit in fourteenth place. The draw brought them together early, but this time one side pulled away.