Aleksandar Stanković: "I'll call my father later"
Aleksandar Stanković had a smile up to behind his ears after his winning goal against Racing Genk. "It's great. Before this I always scored with my head, but it's extra nice to score this way now." The Serb is extra happy because his father, Dejan Stanković, also had great kicking technique as a player. "My father will be proud of my goal. I'll call him later, I'm already looking forward to that."
About the match against Racing Genk and his ex-coach, Stanković is very honest. "It was a difficult match, a difficult opponent too with a good coach of course. But we are Club Brugge. We can fight back if we need to."
Blauw-Zwart showed two faces against Racing Genk, but put the lopsided situation right. "It wasn't our best game, but we're going to get better because of this. Together we are going to go through every mistake with the team and learn from it. It may not happen, but we'll put it right. That's soccer."
Hans Vanaken: "Now just mentally recharge"
The Club Brugge captain was satisfied with his team's resilience, but at the same time critical of the three goals conceded. "We start well and are 1-3 ahead at halftime, but then they can come out of the locker room thinking they have nothing left to lose. They then score 2-3 pretty quickly and that gives them new energy."
For a moment it seemed to go all wrong when Racing Genk was also able to score the equalizer, but Hans Vanaken praised his team's reaction. "We didn't get into our game. We couldn't keep track of the ball and didn't get to their goal. Then it even becomes 3-3 and I think it made Genk think again, because suddenly they do have something to lose. Then that goal by Stanković did help. When we were ahead again, it was easier to play soccer. We could then finish it off completely with the last counter."
Now the players press the pause button for a moment. The winter break begins for Club and the next game is not until Jan. 13 in the Croky Cup against Charleroi. "It's time to take a break, though. Physically it's certainly still going, but recharging for a while mentally is welcome. It's another long six months ahead, so I'm glad the winter break is here now."
Ivan Leko: "Nice ende of a good year"
"I especially enjoyed our first half. In it we brought the soccer we want to bring, which we already brought against AA Gent and FC Dender and that resulted in a 1-3 at halftime. We now have 9 on 9, which is nice going into the break. We want to get results, but in a way where we bring dominant and good soccer. If we keep doing that, the results will come anyway."
In the second half, the home team came on and managed to come alongside, so it was up to us to show character. We knew that the first goal in the second half would determine the direction the match would go and that goal fell to them."
Still, Club was able to pull out the longest finish due to a gem of a goal from Stanković and Sandra, who managed a counter-attack into goal deep in injury time. "I am extremely happy that we can score five goals in an away match. We enforced that touch of luck ourselves. We came here to play soccer, with an open mind. This win is one that makes the whole club happy, that makes the supporters happy. A great victory at the end of a great year for all of Blauw-Zwart."
With five different goal scorers for Club, the scoreboard was well stocked. "It shows the importance of the danger coming from all sides. We play high and therefore bring the necessary pressure forward, but we also have to get the defense on point to keep doing that. We will continue to evolve in that."
Soccer in Belgium is on hold for a while due to the winter break. After the winter break, the cup match at Charleroi is on the schedule.
"We're all going to take a breather now and recharge our batteries. After that, we will work to be even better next year."