All news

Club - Ghent: the Club facts

Jupiler Pro League

This text has been automatically translated for you by AI. Small imperfections are possible.

Sunday is once again time for the Jupiler Pro League. On matchday 8 of this season, Club Brugge hosts KAA Gent at Jan Breydel. Kickoff at 1:30 p.m.!

The match

The tenth official match of the season will be 'De Slag om Vlaanderen' at Jan Breydel on Sunday. This is the 157th First Division confrontation between the two teams. The 78 previous home matches produced 45 wins (last time 2-0 on 17/12/2023), 14 draws (last time 1-1 on 03/02/2019) and 19 defeats (last time 1-2 on 06/02/2022).

The previous 2 home matches against the Gentenaars ended in a 2-0 win for Club Brugge each time. Last season there were 2 goals from Igor Thiago, the year before that Bjorn Meijer and Hans Vanaken took care of the double difference. At home in Gent, Club lost 2-1 last season.

Club won the last mutual league duel, but it has been since October 2019 that Club could record consecutive wins against blue and white (then 3 times in a row). But there is usually a winner in the mutual duels between Club and La Gantoise. In the last 27 league matches, there were only 2 draws (13W 12L). If Club wins, it will book its 5th consecutive victory in the Jupiler Pro League.

Andreas Skov Olsen is Club's top shooter with 3 goals. Gustaf Nilsson could be involved in a goal (2 goals + 3 assists) on Sunday for the fifth consecutive match. The Swede is Club's assist king. Only Joedrick Pupe (Dender) and Yira Sor (KRC Genk) handed out more assists than Nilsson.

Simon Mignolet can play his 250th game in the Jupiler Pro League on Sunday against KAA Gent. The first 66 of those were at STVV, after a period in the Premier League, he can play his 184th match for Club in First Division on Sunday. Remarkably, his debut, 17 years ago with STVV, was also against KAA Gent (05/05/2007).

The opponent

The Buffaloes have already had a busy start to the season with six European and six league matches. Like Club last season, it had to survive three preliminary rounds to get into the League Phase of the Conference League. It eliminated Vikingur (Fro), Silkeborg (Den) and Partizan Belgrade (Srb). The 6 matches of the League Phase now await the likes of Chelsea FC, Molde FK and FC Lugano.

With a 10 out of 18, Gent made a reasonable start to the season. It won at KV Kortrijk (0-1) and knocked off Westerlo (4-1) and KV Mechelen (2-0) at home and played a draw against Antwerp (1-1 at home). But it already lost twice at home against FCV Dender (1-2) and at Sporting Charleroi (1-0). With that, Gent can now be found in 9th place in the standings.

Since this summer Wouter Vrancken is the new trainer of the Buffaloes. As a player he was already active at the club for 2 seasons (2004-2006). After KV Mechelen and KRC Genk, KAA Gent is the third first division club he will take under his wing.

KAA Gent can already score 9 goals this season. Remarkably, all the goals were scored by a different player. So with Mathias Delorge, Noah Fadiga, Matias Fernandez-Pardo, Omri Gandelman, Pieter Gerkens, Andri Gudjohnsen, Sven Kums, Franck Surdez and Daisuke Yokota, the Buffaloes have 9 top shooters. With 3 assists, Franck Surdez is the assist king.

If KAA Gent can win Sunday, it will book its 50th victory against Club Brugge in First Division.

Milestones

  • Romeo Vermant can play his 20th official match for Club.
  • Both Joaquin Seys, Christos Tzolis and Gustaf Nilsson can play their 10th match for Blauw-Zwart.
  • Casper Nielsen can play his 70th league match for Club.
  • Hans Vanaken can play his 420th match in First Division (76 for Sporting Lokeren and 343 for Club).
  • Simon Mignolet can play his 250th match in First Division (66 for STVV and 183 for Club)

The referee

Nicolas Laforge will whistle Sunday's home game. He is assisted by Laurent Conotte and Vito Di Vincenzo (linesmen) and Nathan Verboomen (fourth official). Lawrence Visser is the VAR, assisted by Ruben Wyns and Christophe Snoeck.

For the 44th time, Laforge will be the ref on duty at a Club official match. Blauw-Zwart's 21 previous home matches in that series resulted in 13 wins, four draws and four defeats. Of the Buffaloes, Laforge whistled no fewer than 53 previous matches. 31 of those were on the road (11W 10D 10L).