On Thursday, RSCA faces the first leg of the third preliminary round of the UEFA Conference League against Moldovan side Sheriff Tiraspol. "With another tricky away game next week ahead of us, it will be important to get a good result tomorrow." Tickets are still available for the match at ticketing.rsca.be. Those who want to follow the game at home, can watch the game on MAUVE TV.
Coach Besnik Hasi will have an almost fully fit squad at his disposal for the game tomorrow. Only Killian Sardella and Zoumana Keita are still sidelined. "We still have to be careful with a player like Ilay Camara, who made his first minutes against Cercle after his injury. Ideally, we'd like to build up his minutes some more. For Özcan, it is too soon to already be in the squad. He did train with Aston Villa in pre-season but still needs some time. Other than that, everyone is fit."
Coach Hasi knows it will be important to take a step towards the next, decisive Conference League play-off round as early as tomorrow. "The first objective is to win the game. We also want to be able to impose our game more with every game. You can see we are still a team under construction. Against Cercle we played a strong first half, but we need to extend those spells of dominance. Sheriff actually plays similar football to Cercle, with a lot of fast and powerful players. They can develop pressure quickly if you linger too long on one side. So it will be important to show quality in possession. It's a tough opponent to play, for sure."
This week also saw a draw for the Conference League play-offs, which will finally decide who advances to the group stage. If Anderlecht make it through against Sheriff Tiraspol, they will either face Cypriot side AEL Limassol or Greek side AEK Athens.
“But we are really not concerned with that right now”, the coach said. "First, full focus on tomorrow's game. It won't be an easy trip to Moldova next week either. It will be a long journey, we don't know yet in which stadium we will play, and on top of that, after that game another match against Dender at 1.30pm is already scheduled on Sunday. So it will be important to get a good result already tomorrow and manage everything well."