Football Season Guide

Kortrijk barely survived last season. After an awful start to the campaign the Reds changed manager during the winter break. Icelander Freyr Alexandersson improved the displays. Kortrijk were dead last and adrift from everyone when he took over. However, a series of wins against direct rivals and vital play-off draws saw Kortrijk avoid direct relegation. By that point the confidence was high and Kortrijk beat Lommel 5:2 on aggregate (1:0 and 4:2) in the survival play-off. Striker Ambrose was the hero of this play-off with his hat-trick in the second leg. Ambrose missed pretty much the entire season before that. The talented striker Ambrose can be a massive difference-maker. If he stays healthy Kortrijk should have much better scoring record this campaign. Coach Alexandersson managed to stabilise the defence too after adding 2 Japanese centre-backs in the winter – Fujii and Tsunoda. Kortrijk looked very solid when both of them played and now in their first full season at the club they can be expected to be even better. The gaffer clearly likes how Japanese players fit in his system and this summer he added another hard-working Japanese. Kaneko is an attacking midfielder that can also play on each wing. The main players to leave the team so far were loanees Kana and Davies, both returned to their parent clubs. The latter wouldn’t have seen many starts now Ambrose is fit anyway. Kana on the other hand never stayed healthy for too long so this was the reason why Kortrijk don’t feel they will miss him too much. Kortrijk mainly use 3-1-4-2 or 3-4-2-1 formations. In both, captain Silva has a vital role in the heart of the defence. Kadri also is a key man in midfield. He creates most of the big chances with his passes and crosses.