The 2022/23 Belgium Jupiler Pro League kicks off this weekend and on the 23rd of July we have a meeting between Sint-Truidense VV and Royale Union Saint-Gilloise.
The match will be played at Stadion Stayen and the hosts finished 9th in the regular season league table while the visitors finished top but second in the playoffs.
📸 Notre équipe immortalisée sur pellicule !Ready for the 2022-2023 season. pic.twitter.com/ZPPt712MsH— Royale Union Saint-Gilloise (@UnionStGilloise) July 20, 2022
📸 Notre équipe immortalisée sur pellicule !Ready for the 2022-2023 season. pic.twitter.com/ZPPt712MsH
Sint-Truidense VV come into this game on the back of several friendly matches. Their final friendly ended in a 2-0 home defeat at the hands of RFC Seraing but there were plenty of victories, with wins coming over Anderlecht, Standard Liège, Wörgl, and Viktoria Plzen.
Form towards the end of last season was excellent and Sint-Truidense VV won their final 4 games of the season. There were wins at home over Beerschot and Standard Liège plus away victories against Genk and Zulte Waregem.
Trends show Sint-Truidense VV are undefeated in their last 9 Jupiler Pro League matches. They have not lost in their 4 most recent home fixtures in the league and have tasted defeated only once in their last 7 league games at Stadion Stayen.
Sint-Truidense VV have been scoring plenty of goals when playing at home in the Jupiler Pro League and have scored 2 or more goals in 3 of their 4 most recent games but have kept only 2 clean sheets in their last 6.
Royale Union Saint-Gilloise travel to Stadion Stayen having played a series of 6 friendly matches to get themselves up to speed for the new season.
They remained undefeated in those 6 friendlies, winning 3 of them against Rebecq, Deinze, and Feyenoord. There were draws against Racing Union Luxembourg, Brighton and Hove Albion, and Sporting Lisbon.
Royale Union Saint-Gilloise finished last season in disappointing fashion with 3 defeats from their final 4 Jupiler Pro League matches.
The defeats came at home to Club Brugge and Antwerp plus away to Club Brugge. Those defeats cost Royale Union Saint-Gilloise the opportunity to be crowned champions of Belgium.
However, Royale Union Saint-Gilloise were difficult to beat on the road and they are undefeated in 16 of their last 17 away league games. They have scored 2 or more goals in 6 of their 8 most recent away league fixtures.
Looking ahead to the team news and Sint-Truidense VV have no major injury concerns ahead of this match. They have lost top scorer from last season, Taichi Hara who has re-joined Getafe following his loan spell in Belgium.
Royale Union Saint-Gilloise have also lost their top scorer from last season and Deniz Undav has joined Brighton having scored 25 league goals. Therefore, Dante Vanzeir is the main man in attack for the away team.
This will be a tricky opening game for Royale Union Saint-Gilloise and they are likely to concede. However, Royale Union Saint-Gilloise have a fantastic away record and should score the goals they require to come out on top.