All games have been played, the dices have been thrown! Most board will start with a thorough evalution of the performances of the squad and trainers!

Most teams playing in Play Off II will give some yhoungsters the chance to prove themselves and to earn a spot in the squad for next year! But there will also be teams who will take Play Off II seriously and will try to capture the last European ticket!

# The final ranking!

 

Lot's of team who were already assured there spot in PO I did loose some points.

Maybe the most surprising is the one where Club Brugge did loose at home against Mouscron. An on the other side it also isn't a surprise because Mouscron haven't lost a competition game yet in 2019!

But also Genk did spill points. There were no signals that this would be the case. With 20 minutes to play, they were leading 1-3 against Zulte and were chasing number 4! But still they only went home with 1 point after Zulte equalised in the 93th minute! I do hope for Genk that they will not have to look back to this game after the season is over! Due to the fact the Brugge did loose, they could have increased their lead to 9 points. In the stead of the 7 now!

Gent did steal the 6th place from St Truiden. Pretty sour for St Truiden, who were in the top 6 for almost the complete season, seeing all the hard work vaporizing in the last game! I don't expect a decent performance of them in PO II, this really must have hurt!
Gent on the other side came back nicely. They key points were the new coach and decent purchases during the winter break. Strangly they are now dreaming of the title, which is according to me a bridge too far!

And what about Standard who were 0-3 down after 60 minutes but still won their game with 4-3! Amazing. Always a team to watch out for in POI!

Play Off I

The strange format in Belgian says that all points earned during the regular competition will be halved! PO I consists of 6 teams, all thinking that they can still win the title. But in the previous 9 season, 6 times the winner of the regular competition did win the championship!

Genk now has a 4 point lead over Brugge, but when they both end with the same amount of points, Brugge will be the Champion. This because with the halving of the points Genk did get an extra 0.5 point. (63/2 = 31.5 which is rounded to 32)

The is the table at the start of Play Off 1!

The teams with a * behind them got an extra point due to the halving of the points.

I do thinjk that 4 maybe 5 teams still can lift the throphy! Only Antwerp, due to their recent performance, will not make it and probably will end last!

The winner of Play Off 1 will have an autmatic spot in the group round of the Champions League, the number 2 will qualify for the qualifications of the Champions League.

Depending on the ranking of Genk, number 4 or 5 will play against the winner of Play Off 2 for the last remaining Europea League ticket!

Play off 2

The number 7 up to 15 will play Play Off 2. All even numbers will go to Play Off 2 B, all uneven numbers will go to Play Off 2 A.

In both groups also some teams from the Proximus League are added! The winners of both groups will decided in a home and away game who will win Play Off 2 and who will face the number 4 or 5 from Play Off 1 for the last reamining European ticket!

Play Off 2 always is a gamblers nightmare. Nobody has an idea how motivated the teams are to play this competition. In the B group probably Mouscron and Zulte do want to win it. In group A is it harder to make a prediction. Based on the quality St Truiden should be able to win it, but that all depends on how big the wound was by not qualifying from Play Off 1!

Cheers,

Peter