Super Eagles duo Paul Onuachu and Cyriel Dessers both scored in the same match for only the second time this season but still ended up on the wrong side of a hiding as their Genk side was roundly thrashed by newly-promoted Beerschot in a Jupiler League game on Monday.
Since both players scored in Genk’s opening game of the season, which incidentally was Dessers’ debut for the Belgian side, neither player had found the back of the net until they both ended their drought against the newcomers.
Onuachu, 25, making just his second start of the season, equalised from the spot with his second league goal in four appearances after Raphael Holzhauser gave the home side a 12th minute lead.
Pierre Bourdin restored Beerschot’s advantage after the interval before Genk were reduced to ten men when Carlos Cueta received a second yellow just before the hour mark.
The visitors’ woes were compounded when Holzhauser made it 3-1 from the spot with his second of the game moments later.
Onuachu then made way in the 65th minute for compatriot Dessers who dropped out of the lineup having started all four previous league games this season.
Things then got from bad to worse for Genk as they were reduced to nine men three minutes after Dessers’ introduction when Theo Bongonda collected a straight red for a horrendous foul leaving Hannes Wolf’s side with a mountain to climb.
Dessers, however, clawed one back with a penalty, his second league goal since his summer move, albeit both have come from the spot.
Hopes of an unlikely fight back were brutally extinguished as late goals from Yan Vorogovskiy and Marius Noubissi condemned Genk, who have now fallen to10th on the log, to a second straight defeat.
Onuachu and the 25-year-old Dessers who finished as top scorer in the Eredivisie last season will hope to continue their goal scoring form and return Genk to winning ways when they host KV Mechelen on Sunday.
Both stars will also hope to be in Super Eagles’ head coach Gernot Rohr’s plans for next month’s friendly against Tunisia and Ivory Coast in Austria.
Onuachu who was part of Nigeria’s bronze medal winning squad at the 2019 Nations Cup in Egypt has not played for the Super Eagles since coming off the bench in a friendly against Brazil last October although he was an unused substitute in the Eagle’s 2021 AFCON qualifying victory against Benin in November.
Belgian-born Dessers has yet to make his debut for Nigeria since declaring for the 3-time African champions. He was in line to make his debut against Sierra Leone in a 2021 AFCON qualifier in March before the coronavirus pandemic forced the postponement of the fixture.
