Wednesday, March 15, 2023 at 7:53 PM• Jonathan van Haaster • Last update: 19:59

Gift Emmanuel Orban has guided KAA Gent to the quarterfinals of the Conference League. In the return match in the round of 16 against Istanbul Basaksehir, the Nigerian striker scored a hat-trick within three minutes and 23 seconds: the fastest hat-trick ever in a European game. Ghent eventually won 1-4 and after the 1-1 draw in Belgium that was enough to convert. It is the first time since the 1991/92 season that the buffaloes qualify for the quarterfinals of a European tournament.

Ghent started the match moderately. Basaksehir had the better of the game in the opening phase and had the first chance of the game after five minutes. Ömer Sahiner offered a header chance to Serdar Güler, who didn’t hit the ball full. Ghent had trouble finding the free man in the future, while Basaksehir could often be found on half of the Belgians. After half an hour of play, Ghent suddenly took the lead. From a counter, the ball ended up at the feet of Hyun-seok Hong, who had a subtle pass to Orban. The attacker found the short corner and that led to the start of a bizarre three minutes.

Barely a minute after kick-off, a careless loss of possession by the Turks led to a shooting opportunity just outside the box for Orban. The twenty-year-old African looked up and found the short corner with a hard shot: 0-2. Basaksehir immediately lost the ball at kick-off, so that Ghent could think about attacking again. The ball ended up on the right side of Hugo Cuypers, who pulled back excellently towards the edge of the box. Orban was there again. First he encountered Volkan Babacan, who did not prevent the rebound from being used by the goal thief: 0-3. The fourth goal came three minutes later. Sven Kums, ex-SC Heerenveen, passed Cuypers, who finished with the head: 0-4. Just before the break, Basaksehir seemed to do something in return via Deniz Türüç. However, the Enschede player saw his free kick hit the post.

After the break, the real tension visibly disappeared from the game and opportunities remained quite scarce. Shortly after the restart Cuypers had a chance to score the 0-5, were it not that his shot left something to be desired. On the other hand, substitute Patryk Szysz, who relieved Türüç, saw his header go wide. Another substitute, Danijel Aleksic, tried twice with relatively harmless shots. Orban got his ‘crowd change’ ten minutes before the end. In addition to his hat-trick in Istanbul last weekend, the Nigerian also scored four goals in one half at Zulte-Waregem (2-6). From the bench he saw that Adnan Januzaj saved the Turkish honor by taking advantage of a falling ball: 1-4.