With their inaugural season in the BPL now complete, Red Star Aalst can look back on a solid, if unremarkable campaign. The club finished with a 9-7-22 record, which put them in 13th in the league table, some 21 points behind the 12th place club Belgium FC.
President Harmanus Maes spoke in a recent interview about the growth of the team in year one, and the incredible return of top tier football to the region. "To see Aalststadion restored to its former glory does give me a great deal of joy" said Maes. "We're up to a 30,000 capacity, the fans have come flooding back to watch the team play, and the team itself has grown considerably in our first year. Hopefully, it is momentum that we can carry forward into the coming years."
Aalst finished the season with 37 goals scored (13th in the league) and 70 goals conceded (13th), but with an average of 67.9 goals for teams in the BPL, it seems that Aalst was a lot closer to mid-table defensively. The team was caught with a fair number of cards as they had 35 yellow cards (9th) and 6 red cards (T16th)
As for the usually gruff manager Rickard Oberlander, he did complement his team somewhat during the press conference following their final league match of the season. "Being a team brand new to this league is a difficult thing indeed" said Oberlander. "The players here worked hard. We have work to do still on scoring and on discipline, but it is a start at very least. I only hope this continues into the new year."
Of the individual players on the club, few shone greater than captain and goalkeeper Archibald Friedland. The 22 year old managed 8 clean sheets in 31 matches, and was one of the top goalkeepers in the entire league. Offensively, Claudie Huntington was the only Red Star player to reach double digit goals with 10, while Larenzo Kirk had 8, Adrian-James scored 6, while Reinoud Verschueren and Hendricus-Jacobus Peeters had 4 each. AJ Castro was far and away the most undisciplined player on the team with 15 yellow cards and 4 red cards, his only 4 missed league matches coming as a result of suspensions.
Red Star can now look forward to a very busy offseason as only 8 players remain on their current roster.