Gantoise and Royal Racing Club de Bruxelles will contest a unique Belgian men’s national final following their two-legged wins over Waterloo Ducks and Braxgata, respectively.

For Gantoise, they did not even know if they would be in the playoffs until late last week due to confirmation of Royal Leopold’s late points deduction.

They duly won 2-1 against regular season champions Waterloo in the first leg before playing out a thriller, falling 4-3 in game two but winning in a shoot-out.

For coach Antoine Kina, it means Gantoise are in a final after many attempts with their last success coming all the way back in 1921: “Our first objective of the season was to reach the playoffs and everything else would be just a bonus. 

“Now we are here, we will do everything we can to impose ourselves by taking advantage of the moment. Racing has a little more experience than us at this level but we will have to keep our composure and structure to have a chance of winning the title.”

Racing lost out on Saturday 2-1 to Brax but bounced back to win 3-1 in game, coming back from a goal down with efforts from Tanguy Cosyns, Cédric Charlier and Jérôme Truyens. Racing are also looking to end a long wait for the title, their last coming all the way back in 1941.