Weekly domestic action review

Jeunesse victorious in derby

With neither side having another competition to play for, all eyes in Esch-sur-Alzette were on the weekend derby between the two prominent clubs of the town, Jeunesse and Fola.

The two teams have already played each other this year, at a friendly. As the old cliché goes, though, form did not matter for much at a derby and struggling Fola could keep a 0-0 at home against an organised, solid Jeunesse Esch.

Not much has changed in the meantime, either. The black-and-whites are still in mid-table, never under any real relegation threat but also at a considerable distance from the European spots. Fola, meanwhile, never really picked up form or momentum throughout a challenging season on and off the pitch, and they can consider themselves lucky to be camping above the playoff places for now.

The 121st Escher Derby kicked off on Sunday afternoon, with Fola needing a win if they were to avoid going winless in both games against their rivals for the first time since the 2018-19 season. The game regularly brings high attendance numbers, and more than a thousand fans showed up at Stade de la Frontière this time, too, the majority hoping to see Jeunesse live up to the pre-match expectations and deliver the three points.

There wasn’t a lot to be anxious about after the first 30 minutes. After a balanced start to the game with chances on both sides, it was the home side who opened the scoring via an Alexandre Arenate shot. Only three minutes later, fellow striker Demba Seck scored for Jeunesse as well, putting Fola in a rather challenging position. Their troubles escalated further when full-back Lambilate Tawaba diverted the ball into his own net after an unlucky deflection off Emmanuel Lapierre’s shot.

The guests did try to recover from their misery after the third goal conceded, but to no avail. It took until eight minutes into the second half for the consolation goal to arrive, when Ilyas Jeridi scored straight from a free kick, his accurate shot bouncing in off the crossbar.

The goal fuelled Fola’s players’ optimism in their quest to find a way back into the game, and it’s fair to say they dominated the second half. But the goals didn’t come, Jeunesse stood firm and managed to do the double over Fola, with two separate 3-1 wins in the BGL Ligue this season. Ilyas Jeridi was the only player in both games to score for Fola.

Dudelange follow Hesper out of the cup

League leaders Swift Hesperange were surprisingly beaten in the Coupe de Luxembourg at the round of 16 earlier this month, by a committed Differdange team playing at the top of their game.

The unlikely exit of one of the favourites to go all the way opened up an easier route to the final than expected for everyone, not least F91 Dudelange, who lost their grip on the league title race by losing to Hesper.

F91 had to face Victoria Rosport for a place in the semi-finals, and although Rosport have shown great improvement and an impressive attacking system in the past couple of weeks, they were still considered absolute underdogs coming up against a team of serial winners in Dudelange.

But at Stade Jos Nosbaum on Wednesday, Rosport looked anything but out of place. Dudelange were the ones chasing the game throughout most of it and went behind twice in the second half as a result, the goals coming from winter signing of the season Oege-Sietse van Lingen and reliable midfielder Johannes Steinbach.

F91 then used up all their substitutions in the second half looking to change the state of play and gain some advantage but there seemed no sign of tiredness in Rosport’s defence. Eventually, the favourites had to resort to counter-attacks in order to get into scoring chances, one of which was converted in the 83rd minute by Brazilian striker João Magno to make it a brace for himself. The goal sent the clubs into extra time, which was arguably 30 minutes more than what Dudelange had planned for, and one could feel sorry for Rosport too, for having to play on after being ahead for a total of 47 minutes on the night.

The decider came while all the other progressing teams were already celebrating wildly, with fans and staff involved, on other pitches around the country. That’s when Yan Bouché, coming home to Luxembourg last summer after a stint in Denmark, decided to pick his moment to score the winning goal. Ernesto Carratala-Jiménez stole the ball from Samir Hadji, to then lay it off to the young winger to score past Lucas Fox.

The win marked Rosport’s first entry to the semi-finals since 2007/08. On that occasion, they beat now-defunct CS Pétange on penalties en route to the final, where they lost to Grevenmacher by a 4-1 scoreline.

Dudelange are out of the competition before the semi-final stage for the first time since 2016/17 (excluding the two editions that were paused midway through, due to COVID-19). It will already be a disappointing season for the Yellows, given their slim chances of retaining their BGL Ligue title. They are currently in second place, six points behind leaders Hesper with four games remaining.

The second-division fairytale

The round of 16 was a cruel matchday for underdog fans in a cup edition where surprises were few and far between. The last 16 to progress included only four teams from the second division Ehrenpromotioun, and none from below. Three of those teams went out (two hardly giving up a fight), and Marisca Mersch remained the only reminder in the competition about the fact that Luxembourg has several leagues below the popular BGL Ligue. Marisca themselves are on their way to promotion too, largely battling for second place with Bettembourg.

In the quarter-final draw, they got as favourable a draw as one might wish so late in the competition, having to face top tier mid-table side Wiltz 71 for a place in the final four. Mersch had never gotten further than the last 16 in the domestic cup before, having always been a lower-division outfit.

On this occasion too, Wiltz were expected to take control of the game and shape it their way, while Mersch had to be good in transitions and exploit every chance that came up. And that is exactly what happened in the first half, when Benny Bresch pounced on one of the few chances for the home side up until that point.

It took the introduction of Wiltz’s top scorer in 2022/23, Benjamin Romeyns to lead a comeback, as the Belgian equalised in the 51st minute. What comes next goes a long way to show why Wiltz eventually failed in their effort to progress. Bresch lays the kick-off to the nearest teammate – long ball over the defence to the onrushing Rodrigues da Cruz – first time header back to Alison Martins – Martins dinks a ball in Bresch’s path – Bresch takes a light touch, fooling defender Rick Brito and goalkeeper Ralph Schon in the process – comical goal.

Wiltz did create more in attack in the chase of another equaliser as they were desperately looking to progress from a tie where they could fancy their chances beforehand.

In the end, that happened to be their downfall: after a corner cleared by Mersch defenders, a long, hopeless ball was controlled by Ben Biver, who surely didn’t expect the hosts’ striker Landrey Meyong lunging at it. But he did, and took the ball quickly, to run into the space vacated by Wiltz and finish the chance off, scoring past Schon.

This is the first time a second-division team makes it to the semi-finals since Union Mertert-Wasserbillig did so in 2019. Back then, they didn’t prove enough in a 3-0 loss against eventual runners-up Etzella Ettelbrück. Mersch will try to surpass Union’s run and make a final appearance in a season where promotion is still very much on the cards.

UECL spot to go to cup winner

As all the teams who could possibly get a top 3 place in the current league season have been eliminated from the cup competition, it has been confirmed the fourth place will not be worth a UEFA Europa Conference League qualifier spot (unless the cup winner isn’t granted a European license, which is unlikely).

Racing Union Luxembourg secured their UECL place last season by succeeding in the cup, beating Dudelange 3-2 and thus depriving 4th-placed Hesper a place in Europe in the process.

This time around, Racing have been knocked out by US Mondorf, who will no doubt be in a great position to appear in the final, and potentially clinch the vital Conference League spot.

In addition, the cup winner will start their European adventure one round later than the teams who qualified through the league, meaning it carries an extra motivation boost for the teams still with a chance to qualify.

Union Titus Pétange, currently fourth in the league, might feel hard done by after the results of Wednesday’s action. The team have put together a solid campaign, racking up wins and goals but still staying some short of the three clubs with arguably the biggest depth in the competition, Hesperange, Dudelange and Niedercorn. Especially Niedercorn’s late-season surge towards second place is what left UTP missing out on the podium, and now missing the chance to feature in Europe, as well, being on the outside looking in as a team finishing below them will get the nod instead.

The four teams heading into the semi-finals are FC Differdange, US Mondorf, Marisca Mersch and Victoria Rosport. The draw will be held at 12:30pm on Friday, covered live by FLF.