Anthony Vanden Borre was once rated, along with Vincent Kompany, as one of the Anderlecht academy’s success stories. Then it all went wrong and his career seemed to be over. Last season, though, he returned to the Brussels club but hardly featured in the first team. He had quite a bit of competition in the… Read More »
Belgium go into back-to-back matches with Macedonia and the country expects. The exploits of the 10 Belgians in the Premier League have not gone unnoticed – just the opposite in fact. The Saturday night football programmes tend to start with ‘Belgians abroad’ before turning to the domestic fare. The stadium will be packed on Tuesday… Read More »
Belgian football starts up again after the winter break tonight. It’s Cofidis Cup time with the return legs of the quarter finals. The top match is Anderlecht vs. Gent, where the score was 1-1 in the first leg. Anderlecht will be without several first choices: Dieumerci Mbokani (CAN), Guillaume Gillet (suspension), Cheikhou Kouyaté (minor operation)… Read More »
The Standard-Anderlecht clash at Sclessin today brings together Ron Jans and John Van den Brom, two of the five Dutch coaches in the Belgian first division. The coaches at two of the country’s leading clubs have had differing fortunes in their first couple of months in Belgium. Jans has certainly shown himself to be the… Read More »
Writing on the blog yesterday, I reasoned that Anderlecht might grab a draw with Malaga. John Van den Brom’s team have shown good league form recently and achieved a good result in Milan. It wasn’t to be though, as Malaga came to Brussels and played Anderlecht off the pitch. Isco was a constant threat in… Read More »
Anderlecht have not played in the Champions League for six years and they haven’t achieved much since the days when Jan Koller, Tomasz Radzinski and Walter Baseggio gave Manchester United – with Gary Neville, David Beckham, Nicky Butt, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs – a good beating in 2000. Last night wasn’t quite up to… Read More »
Anderlecht return to the Champions League after a six year gap. Ever the optimist, President Roger Vanden Stock says that it’s a good time to play AC Milan. He’s probably right as the Italians are at the beginning of team-building. Zlatan Ibrahomovic and Thiago Silva have left the club as part of Silvio Berlusconi’s austerity… Read More »
Marc Wilmots used 15 players in the games with Wales and Croatia. Here’s my view of how the players fared in the two matches. Thibaut Courtois: Hardly tested in the two matches; made important saves and interventions when necessary. He’s there to stay. Guillaume Gillet: Superbly taken goal against Croatia but he’s not a full… Read More »
After two matches, Belgium are level on points with Croatia and Serbia at the top of the World Cup qualifying group. They had hoped for two victories – Wales in Cardiff, Croatia in Brussels – but it was not to be. A defensive error against Croatia, one that was almost repeated later in the game,… Read More »