Part 4 - Pre-Season

The first friendly was the last Sunday in July, away against amateur side Woluwe-Zaventem. This was the nice, easy introduction to life as a football manager I needed. I lined my side up with an attacking 4-2-3-1 formation designed to make use of our strong wide attacking midfielders, with Gaetan Audoor as captain. At half-time it was all going to plan, as goals from Blaise Makengo and Jeremy Foulon gave Liege a superb 2-0 lead. However, by full time it had all gone wrong. The worrying ease in which the amateurs came back to win 3-2 showed the scale of the problems I was facing. The fact that the amateur side had 60% possession, and had 13 shots to Liege's 4 was also a worrying sign.


Next up was a 3rd Round Belgian Cup match at home against Schoten, another amateur side. A 0-0 scoreline resulted in a penalty shootout which Liege won 17-16. However, the 4th Round saw another defeat against an amateur side with a 2-1 home loss at KSV Sottegem. This was hardly decent preparation for the League campaign to come.

Once more, The Chairman popped in after the match and over a glass of his favourite red wine he announced that his expectations for the season were for a title challenge!