Matchday 25 review

F91 Dudelange can essentially celebrate having booked their ticket for the UEFA Conference League qualifying rounds after they limped to a 1-0 win on Sunday afternoon against struggling Schifflange.

The victory, sealed via a 10^th-minute tap-in from Edis Agović, has put F91 within six points of leaders Differdange with five games to go. Certainly a long shot for the title then, but they can find solace in the fact they are six points above the rest of the pack, too, having extended their gap over the stumbling Swift Hesperange - Progrès Niederkorn duo.

Niederkorn could perhaps be the team most disappointed with their weekend showing after a shocking 2-1 defeat to a Mondercange side widely classed as one of the worst in the league. The table backs it up, too: FCM have scored the least goals out of all 16 clubs to date (27 in 25) and only Racing FCUL have conceded more (53, Mondercange are on 51).

The last time Progès lost a BGL Ligue game at their home, Stade Jos Haupert, was on 6 November 2022(!), which is the longest such ongoing streak across the country. Yet, despite these rock-hard foundations to build their season upon, they regularly manage to crumble on the road against supposedly inferior opponents. This latest loss was their fifth in 13 away matches in 2023/24. They have only won three of them.

A win would have put the Wasps above Swift Hesperange in the battle for what looks like the last European qualifying spot on offer at the moment. Hesper had a tough match-up having to play Differdange away from home, and while they dominating long stretches of the game, they came up short in the individual duels, resulting in a 2-0 defeat. It ended all hopes of the Holleschbierg faithful of retaining their title, as their 12-point gap seems pretty much unsurmountable so late into the campaign.

The landscape at the top

With only one loss suffered all throughout 2023/24, FC Differdange will undoubtedly be deserved winners of the BGL Ligue title if they manage to hold onto their position at the top. One of their toughest tests was completed without the prospect of a loss ever really being on the cards during the game against Hesperange.

The five opponents who await them now are Union Titus Pétange (away), Victoria Rosport (home), Niederkorn (away), Wiltz 71 (home) and Fola Esch (away). It is important to note that just like Progrès, FCD have also gone unbeaten at home during the season.

Rosport and Wiltz can hardly be seen as strong enough to inflict Differdange’s first defeat in front of their own crowd with the flow the league leaders are in. Thus, it boils down to winning one (or ideally at least two) of the away games in order to put the title beyond doubt.

Union, while they have little to play for, are always a thorn in any opponent’s side and will surely try to throw a spanner in the Differdange works. The Niederkorn game represents an even sterner test for Pedro Resende’s crew, considering the above-mentioned ferocious form of Progrès at Stade Jos Haupert. On the flip side, a draw there could potentially make them champions.

Last but not least, the trip to Esch-sur-Alzette in late May does have the prospect of becoming a do-or-die battle for both teams involved, but could also end up being a dead rubber depending on all the results in the meantime. Fola would either need a significant improvement or an astounding meltdown not to be firmly in the relegation fight come the last weekend, while Differdange will possibly have wrapped up their maiden league triumph by the time the fixture approaches.

Either way, their lead looks untouchable from the current state of affairs, and everyone but F91 Dudelange could rightly say goodbye to their chances of coming out on top.

Wiltz back to winning ways (Schifflange are not)

I will open with a sentence I guarantee you have not read in 2024 yet: Wiltz 71 won a game of football. After beating Mondercange on 26 November last year, the club from the Éislek embarked on a 12-game winless streak, split evenly between draws and losses.

Beating Racing Luxembourg by a scoreline of 4-2 carries extra importance and is probably the best-case scenario for all the neutral fans: Wiltz are still in the mix of the teams trying to escape a fateful relegation, while Racing also failed to assert themselves away from the bottom-of-the-table pack.

A brace from striker Victor Gorny created the two-goal cushion between the teams after only 16 minutes, and the lead was soon extended by a close-range effort from Nawfel Saïdi. Although Racing managed to stop the rot and avoid a humiliating score, it was a day to forget in the capital nevertheless.

Snatching all three points at such a crucial game will definitely boost the players’ morale at Wiltz, and provides some much-needed calm around head coach David Vandenbroeck as his future at the club is still in doubt nearing the end of yet another disappointing year.

On the other hand, ending the negative stretch when it mattered most also speaks of the mental resilience and experience in the current Wiltz team. If anyone has forgotten, this is the same team who were involved in a nerve-wrecking penalty shootout victory in the relegation playoffs in 2022, and only narrowly avoided having to repeat the same feat last year too, finishing 10^th.

In a fight for survival, much of the final verdict typically boils down to who has the coolest minds and biggest willpower to stay up. One is not sufficient in itself without the other. Wiltz seem to be having both now, which might paint a worrying picture for the two newly-promoted teams, Marisca Mersch and Schifflange.

Both of the above are on five-game winless slumps of their own, putting them last in the form table. For the first half of the season, they both looked comfortably out of the direct relegation equation, but it seems like the early momentum has completely and thoroughly gone. There are several possible explanations as to why it happened.

Marisca Mersch had one of the lowest-quality squads on paper with substantially less top-flight experience than anyone else coming into the season in August. The youthful exuberance and the advantage of a well-oiled team with a positive mindset took the team far in the autumn, when they overachieved to be in mid-table reckoning, but the form has dropped off since. As soon as they experienced their first signs of having to look behind their shoulders on the league table, their confidence evaporated. Injuries to key attacking assets Benny Bresch and Joel Rodrigues da Cruz didn’t help, either.

Schifflange choose the route of luring many well-known faces of the league to their team for their second-ever top-division campaign, strengthening the roster with Mehdi Kirch, Jonathan Hennetier, Mickaël Garos and Kévin Nakache among others. In the winter, the addition of former World Cup participant Nabil Dirar further boosted the technical quality and experience – but it also pumped up the team’s average age.

The board’s struggles with keeping the pitch in adequate condition all year, especially in the winter when groundwater posed a recurring threat to games being played, means the quality of play suffers significantly. To tackle that problem, teams better adopt a direct style with few passes and more action in the air, which is what many teams have done when visiting them. However, Schifflange haven’t proven successful enough in overcoming this issue, in partly due to the squad being assembled to play a totally different brand of football than these circumstances require. Energetic, high-pressing styles with lots of running involved were always going to prove tricky for the oldest squad in the league.

Schifflange and Fola Esch occupy the relegation places after Matchday 25, but Marisca Mersch and Mondercange are close by, and the trio of Käerjéng, Wiltz and Racing Luxembourg are all still kept on their toes, too.

Around the pitches

Mondorf continued their unbeaten streak with three wins in their last four games. Their latest victims were fellow mid-table outfit Union Titus Pétange, who suffered a 2-1 defeat thanks to two quick goals from Mondorf tandem Alexis Bourigeaud and Billel Abdelkadous. The two teams are one point apart, fighting for a place in the top half. Mondorf have the upper hand, despite being positioned lower, due to a reasonably kind schedule.

Jeunesse Esch put their last setback behind them and marched on to dismantle 10-man Marisca Mersch by a 3-1 score. Alexandre Arénate has found the net for the first time this calendar year, to then double his team’s tally before providing an assist, too. Marisca will have to host Strassen next week without goalkeeper Stéphane Moussima, who was sent off after merely five minutes on Saturday.

The other Escher team, Fola, were less lucky as they lost 3-1 in Strassen. With the score standing at 3-0 after 26 minutes, it could have ended much worse but Stefano Bensi's team had to sacrifice this game early on in order to at least avoid an utter thrashing. As a result, Fola are back at the bottom of the league, while Strassen sit seventh, but a top-five finish is still within sight.

Käerjéng kept another clean sheet to secure a vital point against Victoria Rosport at home. The guests never quite looked threatening enough, mostly thanks to UNK manager Franck Rinaldo’s perfectly executed defensive game plan. Young goalkeeper Noah Scheidweiler was rarely put to the test this time, but when he is, he always delivers. Käerjéng sit outside the relegation playoff spots by a hair’s breadth; Rosport are sixth, three points off Jeunesse in fifth.

As always, the games' live commentaries, highlights and full video footage are all available on RTL.lu's Live Arena hub.