Yesterday, Ford announced that it would close its plant in Genk. Ford is by far the biggest employer in the area and 4,000 direct jobs will be lost, together with a further 6,000 indirect ones. That’s massive for a country the size of Belgium. The news has been met by incredulity and the media has… Read More »
If Newcastle United were playing Club Brugge in, say, the last eight of the Europa League, there would be excitement in the air. That’s not the case though and it’s likely that both teams will be taking one or two feet of the accelerator tonight. Pardew has said that Newcastle have been approaching the competition… Read More »
Zulte Waregem, the somewhat surprising home of Thorgan Hazard, could go the top of the Jupiler League tonight if Club Brugge slip up at Leuven. Zulte play cup-holders Lokeren, not the team they were last year, and should take the three points for their seventh victory. Zulte Waregem have won three of their last four… Read More »
The final result was Standard Liege 2 Anderlecht 1 but this wasn’t so much a football match as a fight for supremacy. After the game, Standard’s assistant coach Peter Balette said that it had not been football, it had been war. Standard went into the match on the back of four defeats. Cue banners saying… 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 »
Tonight Anderlecht play Malaga in the Champions League. They will be aiming to win their first match at the Constant Vanden Stock stadium – in that competition – since November 2003. Admittedly, they haven’t played a Champions League match at home since December 2006 – a draw with AEK Athens – but even so, it’s… Read More »
After nine games of the season, the competition is warming up in Belgium. Club Brugge, Anderlecht and Racing Genk are all unbeaten and all have reason to be happy with their form. With Gent also handily placed in the table, only Standard of the ‘Big Five’ have troubles and at Sclessin, that comes with a… Read More »
Here’s a rundown of this week’s Cofidis Cup action in Belgium. The Cup rarely gets people excited but I have a feeling this year could be a vintage one. And don’t ask me why I think that. In the 16 matches, there were 13 winners from the First Division and they were joined by three… 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 »