Given that the Club Brugge – Club Brugge KV, or to give them full credits, Club Brugge Koninklijke Voetbalvereniging, i.e., Club Brugge Royal Football Association – is the second most successful club in Belgian domestic football, it is rather surprising that the Arsenal has never played against them in any of the many incarnations of all the different European competitions over the years. Among clubs from Belgium, we have played against KSK Beveren, SV Winterslag, and multiple times against Standard Liège and RSC Anderlecht, most memorably in the 1970’s Inter-Cities Fairs Cup Final – a two-legged affair in which we overcame a 1-3 deficit suffered away in Brussels and won at home 3-0. Following Montaigne and his inimitable ways of reminding us of what’s what – “It is as foolish to weep about not being alive a hundred years from now as it is to lament that we were not alive a hundred years ago” – I confess that I find personally celebrating that win would be a bit foolish for me. 🙂
Altogether our record against Belgian teams is consistent enough: played 16, 9 wins, 4 draws, 3 defeats, with overall goal difference 38-17. The last time we played against a Belgian club was in the 2019-20 against Standard Liège in the Europa League, winning at home 4-0 before drawing 2-2 away in Liège. That away match fell within Freddie Ljungberg’s temporary (but well-loved) sojourn at the helm, with Saka and Lacazette scoring the goals for us. Martinelli was also in the squad and replaced Maitland-Niles from the bench. We played in a 3-4-3 formation, with our defense graced by two Greeks – Mavropanos and Sokratis – flanking David Luiz, and our midfield was anchored by Guendouzzi and Joe Willock! While traveling to Belgium later tonight, I think Bukayo and Gabi can be forgiven for feeling relieved that this time around their colleagues are a lot more like them in terms of abilities and attitude.
Brugge, the city – with the old town now a Unesco world heritage site and visited by tourists throughout the year – has seen it all. Political capital of the County of Flanders in the medieval Low Countries, and later a bustling inland port connected to the North Sea through an inlet and a strategically located key business center in the Hanseatic League trading operations, the accumulation of wealth and concentration of merchants eventually lead to the opening of the world’s first Bourse (stock exchange) in the late medieval period. Naturally, political upheavals and artistic excellence both followed the mercantile superiority, with Flemish leaders like Jan Breydel leading uprisings that consumed the city – the Brugge stadium is named after him; both Club Brugge and their Brugge derby rival Cercle Brugge play their home matches at the Jan Breydel stadium. After the return of political stability Brugge became one of the artistic centers in the emergence of Flemish schools, with masters like Jan Van Eyck popularizing the use of oil paints.
Geography is History, as has been astutely observed. The Zwin channel – a tidal inlet that created the easily accessible sea route for the inland city of Brugge and facilitated the meteoric rise of the city as a business center in medieval Europe – eventually started to silt up in the sixteenth century, leading to its steady decline, and eventually morphing into the tourist attraction of today as a well-preserved slice of a bygone era.
We can only guess, but I am certain that no one in the traveling Arsenal squad would be thinking about taking a leisurely walk in the old medieval town. Or sitting down for a (very large) bowl of mussels with beer. Or climbing up stairs or riding a horse cart. While I detect a degree of “let’s take this as a free hit” vibe floating around in the Arsenal fanbase, I think we shouldn’t easily underestimate either the value of winning this game or the opposition we would be playing against.
The current standing in this year’s Champions League group stage has us at the top, 15 points from 5 matches with a goal difference of 14-1. If we win against Brugge, and then against the Kazakh champions Kairat Almaty in the final group match scheduled for late January, an away draw at Inter Milan in between would guarantee us one of the top two spots in the group standing. The modified CL rules this season guarantees that the team finishing first or second in the group stages will be playing the second leg of all of their knock-out matches at home, going all the way up to the semi-final if we are to progress that far. I think that provides such a distinct advantage that finishing first or second should be considered a serious target, especially given that much of the hard work has already been put in. Finishing between 1-4 positions guarantee the second leg at home privilege up to the quarter-finals.
Club Brugge is going through a bad patch of form, currently pushed down to the third position in the domestic league following a series of losses that also saw their manager of the last two seasons, Nicky Hayen, leaving the club. So, this would be the first match under the new manager Ivan Leko, a former Croatian midfielder, who just last week was managing Gent. Leko had started his footballing career at his hometown club Hajduk Split, and ended up in Belgium with half a decade each at Brugge and Lokeren.
It is surprising how often we meet a team poised to enjoy a new manager upturn in their form. Brugge’s form is indeed in crying need of an upturn: earlier this month, Brugge suffered a 3–2 defeat away at Sint‑Truidense VV.Before that, in late November, they lost at home to Royal Antwerp FC (0–1), ended a prior match with a narrow home win vs Royal Charleroi SC (1–0), had been beaten 1–0 away at RSC Anderlecht, and earlier in November edged out Dender EH 2–1 at home. That patch shows a mix of results: a couple of wins but also defeats — an inconsistent and fragile team with defense being of particular concern.
For the fans of Belgium’s second most successful club – 19 league titles, 15 behind the dominance of Anderlecht with 34 titles – which has had a particularly stellar few years with six titles in the last decade, the malaise of indifferent domestic form was partially relieved by a spirited 3-3 draw at home against Barcelona on Matchday 4. Their home form has been strong enough, beating Monaco 4-1 on Matchday 1, while losing all the away matches: 1-2 at Atalanta, 0-4 at Bayern, and 0-4 at Sporting on Matchday 5.
Brugge has a bit of a “history” in European football. While their arch-rival Anderlecht has seen more domestic success, Brugge remains the only Belgian club to have played in the final of Europe’s top club competition, losing to Liverpool in the 1978 final of the then European Cup.
For a club of our stature, domestic success, pioneering contribution and worldwide following, Arsenal’s relative lack of European success remains very much in need of being rectified. I am of the opinion that once we find a way to win one CL final, we will take great steps towards winning more. And since the great last years at Highbury, the Arsenal squad of this season is the likeliest of all Arsenal teams to finally break that hoodoo. Not only on paper, but also by our showing until now.
As mentioned earlier, given the importance of ending the league phase in the top two positions, I don’t think Arteta would take this match seriously enough. The challenge would be for him to find the right balance between that need to win and the need to give some of his exhausted key players a break. As their performance and results against Monaco and Barcelona showed, in familiar home surroundings Brugge would pose a threat. They have a side with a balanced combination of experience and youthfulness. An example of the experienced Belgian international Hans Vanaken playing centrally as the traditional no. 10 in the 4-2-3-1 formation, in front of the energetic double pivot of the youngsters Nigerian Onyedika and the Serbian Stanković, son of former Serbian international Dejan.
Sardinia born German youth international Nicolò Tresoldi opened the scoring against Barcelona, with Portuguese Carlos Forbs playing to his right scored the other two. They are 20 and 21 years old, respectively, and while we expect our more seasoned midfield and defense to keep them under check, the combination of raw talent and energy, inspired by the home support, can always be threatening. In goal would likely be the familiar presence of Simon Mignolet, maybe nowadays more consistent and reliable compared to his years with Liverpool.
Nicky Hayen preferred the typical 4-2-3-1 formation for Brugge, both home and away, and in absence of any data to the contrary, it would be fair to expect that Leko would not change the tactical formation etc. for his very first match, but would rather focus on maximizing their attacking potential. This is Leko’s second stint as the manager of Brugge, but he is very familiar with Belgian football, having also managed clubs like Antwerp, Gent and Liège. He doesn’t seem to stay with any club for long, even when it is his hometown club Hajduk, and his managerial success is modest enough. He would naturally love to start his fresh stint at Brugge with a memorable performance against the mighty Arsenal.
As mentioned earlier, despite the injuries etc., I think our squad should be strong enough to find a way to keep our perfect run in this year’s CL going and take concrete steps towards finishing the group stages in the top two positions. While both Rice and Saka, especially Rice, are most likely to start on the bench, our continuing defensive injuries – with Saliba still not back in training – mean that Jurien Timber may not get that opportunity, though there may be a way to find a combination by playing three left-footers in the back four. It is a bit unusual, but not entirely unfeasible.
While the temptation to give both Zubimendi and Rice a break together would be very high, I suspect Mikel would be a bit more circumspect and start with Zubimendi, Nørgaard coming on as a second half substitute. Captain Ødegaard was in good form against Villa and started to show a few glimpses of his best, and he should continue to build match sharpness with Ethan coming on later in the second half after 60 odd minutes. I would keep Eze as the left-sided 8, he is the kind of player who can quickly exploit spatial or tactical gaps in their defensive lines. If Leo were back to full fitness, I assume he would have started, but given that he is still recovering from the calf injury (despite his cameo appearance against Villa), he too would be on the bench, accompanying Merino, Saka, Nwaneri, and Gabriel Jesús who was added to our CL squad replacing the high schooler Max Dowman. I would love to see Jesús getting a few minutes at the end; he used to be at his best in European matches and if we are to go all the way in this competition, his contributions from the bench can be pivotal.
This would be my preferred starting eleven, however I don’t expect Mikel to agree with it:
Raya
White – Hincapié – Calafiori – Lewis-Skelly
Zubimendi
Ødegaard – Eze
Madueke – Gyökeres – Martinelli
Let us start strong, quieten the crowd, control the tempo and possession and we should create enough chances to score a couple of goals towards a 2-0 away win.
Come on Arsenal!
