Mark van Bommel has championship in his own hands with Royal Antwerp: ‘No more secrets from each other’ | Foreign football

,,We are well prepared, that way you can rule out a lot of things”, said Van Bommel during a press conference two days before the crucial match. “We worked very hard to make the playoffs. Now we work for the championship. If we lose, we no longer have it in our own hands, but that was not discussed with the players in advance.”

Unlike Union, the current Antwerp has no experience playing for a national title, “but that has an advantage and a disadvantage”, says Van Bommel. ,,They already fought for the title last year, but they lost it. So everything is constantly shifting. We seemed top fit for weeks and last week that was suddenly different. It goes up and down constantly. You can’t look too much at the past.”

Antwerp and Union will meet for the sixth time this season on Sunday. Van Bommel’s team was previously the strongest three times, including at the start of these play-offs for the championship and in the semi-finals of the Croky Cup, in which Antwerp also won the final against KV Mechelen. Royale Union won twice. “It will be close again on Sunday. We no longer have secrets from each other,” said the coach. Van Bommel has been a trainer at Royal Antwerp since this season, where the Dutch Jurgen Ekkelenkamp, ​​Vincent Janssen, Calvin Stengs and Gyrano Kerk also play.

Royal Antwerp FC from 1880 (the oldest club in Belgium) became national champion four times: in 1929, 1931, 1944 and 1957. Louis Lambert (91), the only player from the last championship team who is still alive, will be present at the game on Sunday. The kick-off will be given on Sunday by Hans-Peter Lehnhoff, the German playmaker who played for The GreatOld played and played the final of the European Cup II at Wembley with Antwerp, where Parma was 3-1 too strong.