Jeunesse and Hostert end 2024 on a high, giants stumble

Hostert 4-3 Rodange

Both teams were striving for points to avoid spending the next three months locked in the provisional relegation spots, and they managed to make their urgency clear from the start. Rodange also had the added motivation of gaining a landmark first win under manager Mehdi el Alaoui, who has suffered six losses on the spin.
 
The two halves told an entirely different story. Diogo Fernandes’ strike separated the teams when they went into the locker rooms after the opening 45 minutes, with the score standing at 1-0. Following the break, Kenan Avdusinović managed to continue his blossoming form with a rapid-fire double in the space of 10 minutes – first a glancing header, then a calm and composed penalty effort).
 
With less than half an hour to go, Rodange found themselves three goals down, and with a mountain to climb. Enter Alex Lopez. That is what el Alaoui did, and the decision to sub him on ended in two goals from the young midfielder in four minutes’ time. It is the first two goals the Rodange academy recruit has ever scored in the BGL Ligue, and it had the potential to bring his team back to life on this chilly December evening.
 
Shortly after, Rodange attacker Malëk Amdouni forced an error from Dennis Besch inside the box, winning a penalty which Sylvain Atieda converted easily.
 
Rodange had come close to winning or drawing games under el Alaoui’s, but success has always eluded them once the final whistle had been blown. Here, it was looking like a completely different story: a vigilant late comeback opened up the opportunity for the guests to keep marching on in search of a fourth goal, which could see them close the gap to their opponents on the day in the league table.
 
In the end, it proved to be no standout occasion, and the encounter joined the list of painful Rodange meltdowns when Belgian winger Jean-Désiré Tibor scored the decider in the last minutes of the game. It was Hostert who kept their cool and emerged victorious from a challenging night and a real spectacle for the neutrals. Rodange, meanwhile, find themselves only one point above direct relegation spots.

Jeunesse Esch 4-2 Fola Esch

The long-awaited Escher derby was postponed for weather concerns earlier this month, and the replay came at a perfect time for both clubs to return to winning ways ahead of the break, with a few disappointing results between them as of late.
 
The last time Fola Esch took a win from the country’s biggest rivalry was in 2021/22, and have since suffered four defeats and achieved two draws in the six proceeding showdowns. Derbies, however, often play out with complete isolation from past tendencies or current forms. Whichever team holds their nerves better and rises to the occasion in such a special fixture, will triumph, regardless of how their last few weeks went.
 
This time, it looked like there could only be one winner from the start. And surprisingly enough, it was Fola Esch. Talented defender Lionel Amou opened the scoring six minutes in, and the lead was doubled in another six minutes by journeyman Madiu Bari.
 
Even without their first-choice goalkeeper Emanuel Cabral, who suffered a serious injury last week, Fola looked stable in defence, successfully eliminating the opponents’ threat after blitzing into a two-goal lead.
 
The second half was ebbing and flowing in much the same rhythm until the last half-hour. Milos Todorović pounced on a close-range opportunity to get his team back in the game, which seems to have motivated substitute Lucas Rodrigues: in his 31 minutes on the pitch, he scored a hat-trick and turned the game on its head entirely.
 
Everything Fola had worked so hard to achieve, with such efficiency, was now ruined, leaving them looking as forlorn as they had at the start of the year. They are spending the holidays in 15th place in the table, second from bottom, while Jeunesse navigated their way away from bottom-half worries.

Progrès Niederkorn 1-1 Swift Hesper

Arguably the match with the most suspense and highest stakes as we headed into this makeshift bonus matchday closing off the year. Hesper had been going through all sorts of troubles off the pitch, while Niederkorn have performed frustratingly on it.
 
The biggest question surrounding the line-ups was who would make it into the starting XI for Hesper, after their entire matchday squad refused to feature against Mondorf two weeks ago, condemning the club to a forfeit. Another absence would have meant instant disqualification from the league.
 
Some had suspected manager Emmanuel da Costa would end up fielding the youth squad to ensure no professionals who have encountered salary delay issues would be given the chance to do more harm with another sabotage. In the end, the truth was in between: youngsters filled the bench in order to have 11 available players in any case, but the starting line-up was very similar to previous fixtures (one notable absentee being captain and top scorer Dominik Stolz).
 
Despite the turmoil, Hesper looked fit for the task and scored their opening goal only seven minutes, when Lucas Correia tapped in a cross from Karim Bouhmidi. It was soon cancelled out, however, by a similar effort from Guadeloupe international Kenny Mixtur, from a pinpoint assist by Omar Natami.
 
Niederkorn enjoyed spells of dominance in the second half and came close to taking all three points during the end, when Hesper started counting on their amateurs and youngsters from the substitutes’ bench – but they held on and survived, taking one point from Stade Jos Haupert at a turbulent time in the club’s life.
 
The winter transfer window will surely provide a chance to offload some of the rebels of recent weeks (even though BGL Ligue categorically refused signing any of them), while they are allowed to sign two new outfielders and a goalkeeper in January to help planning with a trimmed squad.
 
The players’ salary concerns are still ongoing, no solution has been found for the issue and manager da Costa is also reportedly losing his patience after the events that left his team with a 3-0 defeat and a meagre chance of a league title.

What next?

On Friday, 13 December, the draw for the World Cup 2026 qualifying section will be revealed. Qualifiers are set to start in March, with Luxembourg in the fourth pot out of five.
 
Teams across the country will return to training in early January, with a few friendly matches and warm-up fixtures to be announced in the weeks before the league’s resumption on 9 February.