Club Brugge is PAOK’s next obstacle for the Conference League with qualification for the semi-finals in the background and your Gazzetta… takes a tour of their stadium, remembers their European achievements but also the Greek element.

Noti Halaris and Panagiotis Papadimitriou

Counting backwards PAOK to the first great battle against Club Brugge at the “Jan Breydel Stadium”, where he will lay the groundwork for his qualification to the semi-finals Conference League and to reach one step closer… to the dream of a European conquest.

However, the same is also demanded by the Belgian club, who, unlike Dikefalos, have managed to find themselves twice… a breath away from a European Cup, but the Liverpool it had become his great nightmare.

On the other, PAOK is not the first Greek team that Brugge has faced in European competitions and Gazettein addition to the European recognition of the Belgians, also stands in the stadium’s special history and also in the 17-year wait (!) for the team’s new…home.

The 17-year wait for a new stadium and the name of a… revolutionary

The tickets for the match against PAOK were sold out almost… instantly by Club Brugge fans who will flood the “Jan Breydel Stadium”, with a capacity of 29 thousand seats, while 1,400 fans of Dikefalos will be on the side of the team.

A stadium where the Belgian club has written history and has been there since the distant 1975, but the last renovation it undertook was in 1998 for the finals of EURO 2000, where it hosted four matches (including Spain- France 1-2 for quarter-finals).

Despite the history it carries in this stadium, Club Brugge has been fighting for 17 years (!) to build a new, state-of-the-art stadium on the site of the ‘Jan Breydel Stadium’, but its efforts have constantly encountered obstacles. But let’s start from the beginning.

Happy to have completed two pitches for FC Brugge in Belgium. The Jan Breydel stadium was completed today @SISPitches pic.twitter.com/GhfY8Si2OI

— George A Mullan (@SIS_George) 22 March 2019

The name of the stadium comes from Jan Breidel, who is a historical figure for Belgium, as he was one of the people who led the rebellion in the “Battle of the Golden Tracks” after the Bruges Matins.

It opened its doors in 1975 and is shared by the city’s two football teams, Club Brugge and Circle Brugge. Initially, the capacity was just under 20,000 seats, but when Belgium was to host the Euro 2000 together with the Netherlands, a renovation had to be carried out to expand the stadium.

Somehow it took its current form, with around 29,000 spectators able to enter the stadium, with Brugge trying to build their own stadium on the site of the ‘Jan Breydel Stadium’.

🏟⚽️ Training and press conference time at Jan Breydel Stadium! #RMUCL pic.twitter.com/kMkfIRqj86

— Real Madrid CF 🇬🇧🇺🇸 (@realmadriden) 10 December 2019

According to the plan, the costs would reach 100 million euros, the capacity would increase to 40,000 spectators and the pitch of the stands would be 35 degrees. A state-of-the-art scoreboard will be in the center of the pitch with a television and a canopy will be placed over all the stands.

Efforts for a new stadium began in 2007, and the wait continues even after 17 years. But in 2020, there seemed to be a… light at the end of the road when plans for the new stadium were unveiled and a date was also given for Bruges to enter its new… home.

This was in the middle of 2023 when her fans were eagerly waiting for the results. Finally, until February 2023 and after continuous “fights”, the permit board rejected the environmental permit that the group had obtained after objections from some residents of the surrounding areas.

B2Ai and SCAU to design new Club Brugge stadium worth 100 million € @b2ai_office @scauarchi @ClubBrugge #Architecture #Stadium design #stadium #ClubBrugge #Bruges https://t.co/ZPIpOkj9i9 pic.twitter.com/pYT4XgzGRE

— Sports Management (@SPORTSMAG) October 7, 2020

The Greek element that ran through Club Brugge

The Greek element could not be missing from Club Brugge’s past, as three Greek footballers had passed “Jan Breidel” and the cause of Sokratis Dioudis, Spyros Furlanos and Valentinos Vlachos.

The beginning was made with Spiro Furlano and Valentino Vlacho, who moved to Club Brugge. Initially, the former Panathinaikos footballer, although in his two years with Trifyllio’s first team he failed to establish himself in the starting eleven, Brugge made him theirs in May 2013. With one participation and one goal, the Greek midfielder succeeded does not. to establish himself in the Belgian team and in January 2014 he was given a six-month loan to Kalloni and at the end of his loan he was released as a free agent by the Flemish.

The departure of Valentinos Vlachos in 2013, from future European rivals PAOK, had an identical result. Specifically, the former AEK footballer was bought by the Belgians in June 2013 and a few months later was loaned to Aris until the end of that season. The people of Bruges were not satisfied with his progress in Kitrinomavroui, where he made eight appearances, and they reassigned him to a Greek team, specifically to Panionios in 2015, where he lived his best football years.

The Greek community in Bruges grew with Sokratis Dioudis, who moved to Bruges in the summer of 2014 from Aris, to fill the void left by Vladan Kujovic, who faced a health problem. However, the Belgians never trusted the then young Greek goalkeeper’s abilities and did not give him the opportunities he expected. The 31-year-old goalkeeper did not make a single appearance in the Brugge shirt and continued his career on loan at Panionios. The following year he was released by the Belgians and returned to Greece again, this time on behalf of Aris.

Liverpool twice “blocked” the most… golden side of Belgian football

Club Brugge made their presence felt both in Belgium and in Europe from the 1970s onwards as they managed to win almost every possible trophy they competed for.

With… the architect and coaching legend at the end of her bench, Ernst Happel (1925-1992), who led her to three consecutive Belgian championships (1976, 1977, 1978) and a Cup (1977), managed she to remain forever in the history of Belgian football.

Notably, Happel led Club Brugge to their first European final in 1976, but there they met formidable Liverpool in the UEFA Cup double final, where they succumbed to the Reds’ superiority.

The first match was played at “Anfield”, the Belgians took a two-goal lead, but Liverpool managed with one of the usual – at the time – epic comebacks to get a hard-fought 3-2 victory. It is worth noting that the turnaround came with three goals in six minutes, causing… terror in the Belgians, how this epic turnaround for the Reds happened.

The replay took place in Belgium on 19/5 and Bruges were lucky to take an early lead (11′) with a penalty. But a goal from Kevin Keegan four minutes later made it 1-1, which did not change until the end of the second final and was enough to hand the trophy to the English side. With this result, Liverpool won the second UEFA Cup in their history and Bruges competed in a European final for the first time.

Two years later, Liverpool again faced Brugge in a European final, this time for the Champions Cup at Wembley, where… they again fell heroically with a second-half goal from Kevin Dalglish. Since then, Club Brugge remains the only team from Belgium to reach the final of Europe’s premier club football competition.

He has been to the European quarter-finals again with a Greek team…

It is not just PAOK from Greece who have found themselves heading to Bruges for the quarter-finals of the European competition. It was the 1987-88 season when Panathinaikos found themselves on the Belgian club’s path to the UEFA Cup, with the semi-finals of the competition in the background.

The first match between the two teams was played at the Olympic Stadium, where it found the two teams tied with a satisfying 2-2. On behalf of the Greek team, the goals were scored by Saravakos (53′) and Antoniou (63′), while for the Belgians, Kelemans (57′) and De Griz (86′) scored the final score.

In the rematch at the Olympia Park Stadium, Howard’s Bruges got the big qualification for the semi-finals with Brile’s goal in the 44th minute and left Bengston’s Panathinaikos out of the game. In the semi-final against Espanyol, Brugge was eliminated with an aggregate score of 3-2 and did not reach the institution’s grand final.

Another time Panathinaikos found themselves on the road to Bruges was in the 1977/78 Champions Cup when they reached the final. He had found in the second round of the Women’s Champions Cup in double matches, where the Belgians prevailed at the “Olympia Park Stadium” with 2-0 of the green, thanks to the goals of Davies (43′) and Cools (77′) . Panathinaikos in the rematch against “Leoforo” was better and won 1-0, thanks to Gonio’s goal in the 82nd minute. However, it was the Belgians who qualified for the next stage of the competition, where they reached the grand final.