Preview: Eupen vs. Westerlo - prediction, team news, lineups

Eupen and Westerlo will begin their Belgian Pro League campaigns when they meet at Kehrwegstadion on Saturday.

Eupen narrowly survived relegation last season, while Westerlo secured a playoff spot in their first season back in the division.

Match preview

Indeed, Eupen managed to avoid falling into Belgium's second tier by the skin of their teeth for the second successive season, finishing one point clear of Oostende and Zulte Waregem inside the relegation zone.

Despite failing to win any of their final nine league games of the season, Zulte Waregem's defeat to Cercle Brugge on the final day of the season ultimately rendered Eupen's humiliating 7-0 loss to Club Brugge meaningless as they still survived.

Pandas have moved to appoint former Werder Bremen boss Florian Kohfeldt as manager during the summer, with the 40-year-old replacing former Charleroi boss Edward Still after the Englishman's disappointing stint in charge.

Having taken four points from their two league fixtures against Westerlo last season, Kohfeldt will be positive of making a decent first impression when his side comes up against them this weekend.

Considering that they finished eight positions and 23 points clear of their forthcoming opponents in the table, those two results represented a poor return for Westerlo, who otherwise enjoyed a strong opening campaign back in Belgian's top flight.

After guiding them to the First Division B title in his first campaign in charge of the club, Jonas De Roeck built on that success by expertly helping Westerlo finish seventh in their first season in the Pro League since being relegated in 2017.

However, just one win from six matches in the end-of-season playoff system saw them fall short of qualifying for Europe for the first time in more than a decade.

De Roeck and his players will have aspirations of matching or bettering their impressive debut season in the top division, and if they can claim all three points in Eupen on Saturday, that would already represent an improvement on the previous campaign.

Team News

Eupen appear set to be without Bartosz Bialek due to a knee injury, which would mean the 21-year-old missing out on making his debut for the club.

Kohfeldt has already proved his impressive connections by attracting the 10-time Poland Under-21s international on loan from his former club Wolfsburg, but he will have to make do without Bialek for the meantime.

Westerlo, on the other hand, appear to have a clean bill of health at their disposal, meaning that De Roeck is free to select his strongest starting XI.

Club captain Lukas Van Eenoo may have to fight for his place in the side, despite scoring as a substitute on the final day of last season.

Eupen possible starting lineup:

Moser; Davidson, Filin, Lambert; Van Genech, Magnee, Baiye, Charles-Cook; Christie-Davies, Bitumazala; Nuhu

Westerlo possible starting lineup:

Gillekens; Seydoux, Neustadter, Perdichizzi, Bos; Jordanov, Fixelles, Madsen, Van Den Keybus; Matsuo, Frigan

We say: Eupen 1-1 Westerlo

These two sides experienced very different campaigns last time around, but there was little to split them across their two meetings.

Indeed, despite finishing significantly behind Westerlo in the table, Eupen got the better of them overall. We can envisage both teams being content with sharing the spoils on the opening weekend.

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