I went to Club Brugge v Lokeren last night. As we have obvious links I thought it'd be worth noting a few things.
- Bob Peeters is a pundit on TV.
- My taxi driver laughed at me when I said Guy Luzon is manager of my team. It's not only Liege who think lowly of him. He called Roland crazy but didn't know too much about him.
- Like Germany and the Netherlands they use stupid fan cards. This means you can't buy anything in the stadium with cash, you purchase a card for a euro them load money on to it.
- You can drink whilst watching. It was 2e for 250ml.
- Chants are rather English and include English lyrics, plus the usual continental ooooh stuff like 'since I was young'.
- My match ticket was only 18e. Buying online you print your ticket at home then scan yourself in.
- I can't slate a whole league based on one match and some glimpses on TV but the quality wasn't great. My fixture was maybe midtable Championship level.
- Brugge had a couple of exciting players but they flattered to deceive. Lokeren came to defend and managed a 1-1 draw.
- They played You'll Never Walk Alone just before kickoff then the teams came out to dodgy Euro trance.
- The atmosphere was alright, there were about 50 blokes singing the whole game and a couple of chants caught on around the stadium.
- The attached picture shows a tifo which was a nice surprise. I don't know who the Australian player is.
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Comments
Kap, to be honest I didn't think it was any slower than games I see Charlton in. It was a little less physical, though.
Belgian train stations seem to be miles from the town. In Germany they often seem very close. Therefore we didn’t get to see Liege centre.
The stadium is in a very industrial area, you really could be in Middlesbrough or Birmingham.
Around the ground food and beer vendors set up and bars boom out music to the street. I had planned to meet Defke but unfortunately our paths didn’t quite cross.
Our tickets were 20E on the day. I think the most expensive tickets are 32E. Sadly I didn’t see any anti-Duchatelet scarfs to bring back.
You buy beer with tokens – 2E a token, 1 for a small beer and 2 for a bigger one. Jupiler is far better than what we get served up in England.
The stadium is over 100 years and has a lot of character, I thought it was really cool. 3 sides have 3 tiers but in the corners there are no 1st and 2nd tiers – therefore the top tier hangs over empty air.
I think Liege has the steepest stands I’ve experienced. Standing up at your seat honestly felt precarious.
The first half is among the worst halves of football I have ever seen, it was utterly woeful. At least with Charlton there’s usually one good side on the pitch! The first shot on goal was in the 42nd minute. Nothing flowed, there was no guile, there were misplaced passes, players running into dead ends, knocking each other over, etc.
The second half was admittedly better. Standard showed more attacking impetus whilst Kortrijk set up to try and nick one. It finished 1-1, probably fair and both goals were bumbling, scrappy efforts.
The atmosphere was okay, maybe a tad better than in England. I’d imagine it really bounces for big games though.
Standard are having a poor season and two games is not an accurate study of Belgian football. However, based on what little I’ve seen I shudder to think how bad the 3rd tier is. That we were getting so many of their cast-off players is scandalous.