
With 499 goals so far on the European counter, the next one will be memorable. Those goals were scored in 335 earlier encounters. This season will be the 51st featuring Club Brugge on the European scene.
FCB has been in Europe for 29 seasons on end. Only 8 other teams have had a longer run in Europe: Sparta Prague (Cze), Olympiacos (Gre), AFC Ajax (Neth), PSV Eindhoven (Neth), FC Porto (Por), FC Dynamo Kyiv (Ukr), FC Barcelona (Esp) and FC Bayern Munich (Ger).
To boot, this will be Club's fifth consecutive appearance in the UEFA Champions League, making it a new Belgian record.
Our legend Hans Vanaken also holds a few UCL records to his name:
- most UCL group games: 30. Ruud Vormer follows with 24 games, while Gert Verheyen is in third spot with 22 encounters.
- most goals in the UCL group stages: 9. Both Emmanuel Dennis & Gert Verheyen netted 3.
- scoring in 5 consecutive UCL group encounters. No other Belgian player has repeated that trick.
With a third spot in Germany last season, Bayer Leverkusen has made its way to the European Champions League. The Round of 16 in the Europa League saw the demise of the Germans at the hands of Atalanta.
The "Werkself" were off to a bad start, and are now in 14th place with just the three points out of 15. Last weekend, they suffered another home defeat, as Freiburg proved the better after a 2-3 on the night. The team is coached by Mr. Gerardo Seoane, joining in from Young Boys in the Summer of 2021.
The two teams have met just once in Europe before. In the group stages of the 2006 UEFA Cup, the game at Jan Breydel ended in a 1-1 draw. Two players have a history at both teams: in 2021, Odilon Kossounou left Club for an adventure in Germany, and Fredrik Stenman did it the other way round.