Standard Liège dug themselves a mighty big Belgian Cup hole with a 4-1 quarterfinal first leg loss at Cercle Brugge on Wednesday night.

Oguchi Onyewu was sent packing for his second yellow card with his team down 2-1 in the 54th minute. The US international's first caution came after only nine minutes.

The visitors broke the ice on 17 minutes as Axel Witsel split two defenders to nudge home an Igor De Camargo cross.

Cercle pulled level eight minutes later when Frederik Boi released Vuza Nyoni for the equalizer with a fine through ball.

Standard were denied a strong penalty claim to begin first half stoppage time, then fell behind before the end of it. Seconds before the break, Fred nodded a Besnik Hasi corner into his own net.

In the 54th minute, Onyewu was shown yellow-red for a foolish intentional handball in the Cercle area and the hosts took over from there.

Kristof Snelders scored by lobbing overanxious Standard keeper Rorys Espinoza in the 65th minute, then eight minutes later, teed up Tom De Sutter to fire in off the post. The margin could have been worse, but Dante Costa was able to clear a Nyoni shot off his line in the waning moments.

With the Beker van Belgie second leg set for February 27th, second place Standard must now dust themselves off for a league match back at third place Cercle on Sunday.

Scoring
SL - Axel Witsel (Igor De Camargo) 17'
CB - Vusumuzi Nyoni (Frederik Boi) 25'
CB - Own Goal (Fred) 45'
CB - Kristof Snelders 65'
CB - Tom De Sutter 73'

Line-ups
CB - Bram Verbist; Frederik Boi, Anthony Portier, Tom Van Mol, Denis Viane, Honour Gombami, Besnik Hasi, Vusumuzi Nyoni, Tom De Sutter (Osahon Eboigbe 89'), Oleg Iachtchouk, Kristof Snelders

SL - Rorys Aragon Espinoza; Fred, Marcos Camozzato, Oguchi Onyewu, Dante Bonfim Costa, Landry Mulemo, Siramana Dembele, Grégory Dufer (Reginald Goreux 72'), Axel Witsel, Igor De Camargo, Milan Jovanovic (Dieumerci Mbokani 76')