OH Leuven Thread 25/26

[KlaaZ]

1-1 draw in the prelast game of the season. Again went ahead in a semi-decent first half, again threw it away in an absolute disastrous second period. Fifteen goals conceded in the playoffs, every single one of them after halftime. No gameplan after the break other than 'protect the lead', no incentive to go forward for a second, and the same useless subs as ever in the past few weeks. Thank god this guy will be gone in a few. Probably the worst we've played in six years time.

[shen]

On 19/05/2026 at 22:59, KlaaZ said:

1-1 draw in the prelast game of the season. Again went ahead in a semi-decent first half, again threw it away in an absolute disastrous second period. Fifteen goals conceded in the playoffs, every single one of them after halftime. No gameplan after the break other than 'protect the lead', no incentive to go forward for a second, and the same useless subs as ever in the past few weeks. Thank god this guy will be gone in a few. Probably the worst we've played in six years time.

Maybe your club could become pioneers in having one manager for each half? 

[pkonline]

Is City now the "Junior club" to Leuven as we're two tiers below them 👀

[Bonanza]

Results and standings after rounds 8 and 9 of the playoffs

 

Champions Playoffs

 

St. Truidense	1-1	Gent
Anderlecht	2-2	KV Mechelen
Club Brugge	5-0	USG

 

Anderlecht	3-1	St. Truidense
KV Mechelen	2-2	Club Brugge
Gent	0-0	USG

 

 

Fixtures for round 10

 

USG	-	Anderlecht
Club Brugge	-	Gent
St. Truidense	-	KV Mechelen

 

Europe Playoffs

 

OH Leuven	3-0	Antwerp
Charleroi	0-1	Westerlo
Standard Liège	0-0	Genk

 

Westerlo	1-2	Standard Liège
Genk	0-0	Antwerp
Charleroi	1-1	OH Leuven

 

 

Fixtures for round 10

 

OH Leuven	-	Genk
Antwerp	-	Westerlo
Standard Liège	-	Charleroi

 

Relegation Playoffs (final standings)

 

Edited 23 May by Bonanza

[Bonanza]

 

 

 

[Bonanza]

Results and standings after the final round of the playoffs

 

Champions Playoffs

 

USG	5-1	Anderlecht
Club Brugge	5-0	Gent
St. Truidense	3-0	KV Mechelen

 

Club Brugge won the league and qualifies for the League Fase of the Champions League

USG will play the 3rd qualifying round of the Champions League

St. Truidense will play the playoff round of the Europa League

Anderlecht will play the 2nd qualifying round of the Europa League

Gent will face Genk (winner of the Europe Playoffs) in 1 game. The winner of this game qualifies for the 2nd qualifying round of the Conference League.

KV Mechelen miss out on European football

 

Europe Playoffs

 

OH Leuven	0-2	Genk
Antwerp	2-0	Westerlo
Standard Liège	0-2	Charleroi

 

Genk will face Gent (5th place in the Champions Playoffs) in 1 game. The winner of this game qualifies for the 2nd qualifying round of the Conference League.

 

Relegation Playoffs

Zulte Waregem, Cercle Brugge and La Louvière were all safe after the relegation playoffs and will stay up.

Dender had to face Lommel SK (winner of the Promotion playoffs in the 2nd division) in 2 games. Dender lost 2-3 on aggregate and will drop down the the 2nd division, while Lommel will go up.

Beveren won the 2nd division, while Kortrijk finished 2nd. They both get promoted the the first division.

 

Next season's 1st division will consist of 18 team who will compete in a 'normal' competition format without playoffs 

 

 

 

Edited 25 May by Bonanza

[Bonanza]

 

[davieG]

27 May 2026

OH Leuven have announced that Felice Mazzu has been sacked. The former Anderlecht, Charleroi and Union St Gilloise head coach took over after David Hubert was surprisingly poached by Union despite OH Leuven sitting in the relegation play-off zone. Mazzu guided the side, who are a sister club of recently relegated Leicester City, away from the bottom four and clear of relegation. However, a poor showing in the play-offs seems to have resulted in the club looking to go in a different direction next season.

OH Leuven are well backed by their owners, but on the pitch this has not really translated into anything tangible. They have better facilities than most but continue to underperform year on year. At some point, this continued underperformance could lead to them slipping back into the second tier of Belgian football, a league that they and the Leicester City owners worked hard and spent plenty of money on getting out of.

This will be the second season in a row that the club are going to start with a new head coach. Whoever comes in will hopefully have the solution to the clubs ailing problems of poor recruitment and lack of goals. Like many other clubs in the Belgian Pro League, this looks set to be a big summer for OH Leuven and, coincidently, their sister club Leicester City.

 

https://getfootballnewsbene.com/more-changes-at-leicester-citys-sister-club-felice-mazzu-sacked-by-oh-leuven/

[KlaaZ]

6 hours ago, davieG said:

27 May 2026

OH Leuven have announced that Felice Mazzu has been sacked. The former Anderlecht, Charleroi and Union St Gilloise head coach took over after David Hubert was surprisingly poached by Union despite OH Leuven sitting in the relegation play-off zone. Mazzu guided the side, who are a sister club of recently relegated Leicester City, away from the bottom four and clear of relegation. However, a poor showing in the play-offs seems to have resulted in the club looking to go in a different direction next season.

OH Leuven are well backed by their owners, but on the pitch this has not really translated into anything tangible. They have better facilities than most but continue to underperform year on year. At some point, this continued underperformance could lead to them slipping back into the second tier of Belgian football, a league that they and the Leicester City owners worked hard and spent plenty of money on getting out of.

This will be the second season in a row that the club are going to start with a new head coach. Whoever comes in will hopefully have the solution to the clubs ailing problems of poor recruitment and lack of goals. Like many other clubs in the Belgian Pro League, this looks set to be a big summer for OH Leuven and, coincidently, their sister club Leicester City.

 

https://getfootballnewsbene.com/more-changes-at-leicester-citys-sister-club-felice-mazzu-sacked-by-oh-leuven/

For what it's worth, the last two years have been mostly about reversing the financial errors made in the past to ensure that we don't go down the same road as Leicester. We've gone from a standard 20M in the red to 6M in the red last year, and that's not including the major outgoing transfers of Banzuzi and Brunes. Biggest problem was the huge wage bill, which was in the top five of the league (and higher than that of reigning champions Union). But turning all that around takes time and as long as the wage bill (and overhead in general) is not substantially reduced, it's very hard to properly rebuild the squad. In that regard, this summer might be a very exciting one considering we have players leaving worth at least 20% of that wage bill, if not more, and will probably realise one or two major outgoing transfers. 

Either way, the fact that we've been on this big of a costcutting mission without really dropping down the table (finishing 12th three times in a row) is, as far as I'm concerned, a good sign.

And I'm very happy to see Mazzu gone, worst football in ten years, if not more.

[KlaaZ]

On that note, they also sacked two assistants, the U23 manager and the coach responsible for the transition of youth prospects to the first team, with the latter already having a replacement in ex-player Derrick Tshimanga (excellent pick, in my opinion). They weren't lying when they said they really wanted to clean out the mess. 

Edited 28 May by KlaaZ
Assistants, not assistance, brain working overtime again

[lfu]

Carl Hoefkens coming from NAC Breda as the new manager
Breda finished 17/18 in the Eredivisie with only 6 wins, not sure if they had a squad capable of much more but Hoefkens' last two jobs don't seem to have done too well

 

 

[shen]

He has aged about 30 years in the last ten!