Challenger Pro League Regular Season round three produced a surprise result on Friday evening as KRZ Genk II defeated Lokeren-Temse 4:2 at the home ground. The visitors, sitting twelfth in the table with just three points from three games, outplayed the fifth-placed hosts who had collected six points from the same number of fixtures. By then the pattern was clear — Genk II would not be shaken off despite the territory advantage the hosts enjoyed throughout.
M. Kim opened the scoring after just two minutes, a quick strike that set the tone for what followed. Lokeren-Temse responded through J. Coenen's penalty in the twenty-fifth minute, but V. Mabanza restored Genk II's lead before half-time with another spot-kick on the hour mark. And here's the thing — two penalties in quick succession changed everything about how the match would unfold.
Genk II took control after the break when Y. Yoshinaga added a third goal in the sixty-third minute. M. Kim completed his brace seven minutes later, and the hosts were chasing the game rather than controlling it. The visitors made several changes — M. Mocsnik, R. Van den Bergh, and K. Achahbar all came on — while Lokeren-Temse brought on J. Vervaque, D. Nzoko, and S. Van Aerschot in search of a response.
M. Pau pulled one back for the hosts in the eighty-fifth minute, but it was too little too late. Genk II finished with just two yellow cards compared to W. Kapers' booking for the home side, though the statistics show an interesting contrast — Lokeren-Temse had 65 per cent possession and 92 attacks but only managed two goals, while their opponents scored four from 70 attacks with 35 per cent of the ball.
The result leaves Lokeren-Temse on six points in fifth place and Genk II still on three points in twelfth, though the gap between them feels wider than the table suggests. The visitors had lost two of their three games before this victory, and it ended a run that had seen them struggle for consistency. To be fair, they showed more clinical finishing than the hosts, who dominated possession without creating the same quality of chances.