The Purple & White took on leader KRC Genk at the Cristal Arena as part of the topmatch of the 13thde matchday. Coach Ariël Jacobs had to do a whole lot of puzzling because of injured players Lucas Biglia and Olivier Deschacht, and Jan Polak’s suspension. But soon the pieces turned out to fall into place and after 90' a 1-2 victory for Anderlecht appeared on the scoreboard.

The first opportunity of the match was one for the visitors. Legear reached Lukaku, but the striker’s shot missed power and went wide... Sporting, however, did not have to wait long for the opening goal. After less than ten minutes of play, RSCA scored the 0-1. Legear fed the ball to Boussoufa, whose shot hit the post. Sacha Kljestan, however, was in the right place at the right time and put the rebound in: 0-1. The equalizer was also scored quickly, but did come out of thin air. Kouyate wanted to play the ball back to Boussoufa, but it was a sloppy pass, Thomas Buffel was able to intervene and chipped the ball over Proto: 1-1. That 1-1 was also the half-time score.

Anderlecht were very concentrated at the beginning of the second half and immediately put pressure on Genk. First, Courtois was able to avert a centre-shot by Lecjaks from beneath the crossbar, but a few minutes later on, he did not stand a chance against Romelu Lukaku’s header. An active Legear fed the ball to Lukaku, who scored the 1-2. Somewhat later on, Sporting even came close to scoring a third goal, but Genk’s goalie showed some brilliant reflexes and prevented Anele from completely finishing off the team from Limburg with an own goal. Somewhat after the sixtieth minute of play, Franky Vercauteren’s team did almost score the equalizer, but Mazuch was able to make a save, after which the rebound by Camus went long.

The score remained the same, which means that Anderlecht braved the lion in his den by winning 1-2 and, like that, approached the leader’s first place by two points.