Halfway through their debut season, Red Star Aalst is having the kind of season expected of a first year team. Even still, the return of Premier League football in East Flanders has been a welcome sight for the fans. So far, Aalst sits in 15th place with a 4-3-12 record.
Club President Harmanus Maes spoke glowingly about the work done by the club to get to this place. "It has been a monumental effort to get to the place where we are in now" said Maes. "Aalststadion is once again a world-class facility, our training grounds have been upgraded, the staff across the organization is now fully in place and working incredibly hard, and the team on the field is playing hard every match. I could not be happier with how we are doing. We have established a good foundation that we can grow on going forward."
As far as team performance on the field goes, Red Star definitely looks like a team that is new to the league. They have scored a miniscule 10 goals so far (T19th in the league) and conceded a more middling 38 (16th, average goals/team so far is 32.3). Aalst also has shown decent discipline with 14 yellow cards (T6th) and 2 red cards.
Manager Rickard Oberlander was his usual gruff self in a recent post-match press conference discussing his team. "It has been a tough season for us so far" said Oberlander. "We are still playing like a new team, and we need to get ourselves into a more established place within this league. And that is going to require even more work. We are moving in the right direction so far though, albeit a bit slower than I would prefer."
For individual performances, a lot of the stats have been concentrated among a few players. Adrian-James Castro leads the team with 4 goals, with Larenzo Kirk and Claudie Huntington just behind with 3 apiece. Castro also leads the team with 5 yellow cards and a pair of reds, receiving both in the first two matches he played. Archibald Friedland has all five of Red Star's clean sheets in net this season.
Friedland, Aalst's team captain, spoke in an interview recently about his team's early performance and was fairly positive about it. "We are performing as well as can be expected for a new club" said Friedland. "The results have been up and down certainly, but we do look like a professional team. In training, everyone seems focused on improving and our young players have shown a lot of signs of growth and progress. So long as that continues, we should be in a good place by the end of the year."
Red Star's league schedule continues this weekend as the club hosts Better Belgium Bureau at Aalststadion.