So time to have a look at tonight’s opponent’s Anderlecht or R.S.C. Anderlecht to give them their full name.
The R.S.C. stands for Royal Sporting Club by the way.
They are the champions of Belgium of course, hence their Champions League participation, though we’ll get into their most recent form later.
So they were founded in 1908 on the 27th of May as Sporting Club Anderlechtois after football lover Charles Roos (not to be confused with the famous American economist of the same name) organised 13 of his colleagues all to pitch in to help him buy a football.
That’s right just a football.
I guess they must have been pretty expensive back then.
I actually tracked down all of the original investor’s names online but I doubt you’d be very interested in knowing them although two of them were the wonderfully titled Camille de Cuyper and Guillaume Vandenhoof.
They won their first match in what could only be described as a thrilling 11-8 victory against Institut Saint-Georges. In those early days, they actually had something in common with Celtic in that they were playing close to a cemetery.
In 1909 they applied to join the official Belgian league and started off in Division 3 of the provincial football set-up … you know, the way new clubs are meant to.
Roos handed over the reigns as chairman to Theo Verbeeck a year later after convincing wealthy local businessman Emile Versé to invest and in doing so help them purchase their first football field in Verheyden street.
Versé subsequently became their honorary chairman.
The precocious Verbeeck was only 23 years of age when he assumed responsibility and helped guide the club up through the leagues and into the national level of competition and as their popularity off the pitch increased they moved to their first proper stadium in Astrid Park which they christened after the previously mentioned benefactor, Stade Emile Versé. They play there to this day though it was renamed the Constant Vanden Stock Stadium in 1983 after renovations, taking the name of their then chairman.
Sylva Brébart took over as the club’s first official manager for the 1920-21 season and in his first term in charge guided Anderlecht to the top flight of Belgian football for the first time via a play-off victory over RFC Liège.
Brebart was replaced as manager the following year by Englishman Charles Bunyan Sr. who had played for many years in English football before moving to Belgium where he briefly managed the national team before moving into a coaching role at Anderlecht and subsequently taking over as manager.
Unfortunately, he passed away a short time later and was replaced by his own son Charles Bunyan Jr. who had previously played for Chelsea.
Over a ten-year period, the club would bounce between the first and second tiers of Belgian club football being relegated to the second tier on four occasions.
In 1933 they officially changed their name from the aforementioned Sporting Club Anderlechtois by adding the Royal to the start and subsequently upon gaining promotion back to the top flight of their domestic league in 1935. They have never been relegated again since.
They have won the Belgian First Division a record 34 times (a mammoth 20 more than nearest competitor Club Brugge on 14 wins) along with 9 Belgian National Cups, 1 Belgian League Cup (now defunct) and 13 Belgian Super Cups.
They have also won ten out of the last 18 Belgian League Championships.
Safe to say they are historically, and by some distance, the most successful club in Belgian football.
That success has not only been confined to domestic football though.
On the continent, they have been pretty successful too, having won the Cup Winners Cup in 1976 and 1978 along with the Super Cup in both of those years as well as the UEFA Cup in 1983. Not bad. Not bad at all.
Their thrilling 1983 UEFA Cup win saw them score 25 goals in 12 matches as they took the scalps of FC Porto and Valencia en route to defeating Benfica 2-1 over two legs in the final. The competition was very different back then with the favourites not always more than likely to originate from a handful of Europe’s larger countries as is the case now. Just to press home how different it was back then, Rangers eliminated Borussia Dortmund in the first round and Dundee Utd reached the quarter-finals.
Anderlecht has also finished runners-up in four other major European finals with their best results in the European Cup seeing them reach the semi-finals in 1982 & 1986.
This is their 12th Champions League Group stage appearance.
Despite finishing in 3rd spot on multiple occasions they have never reached the last 16 though they have made the second group stage – back in 2000 /2001 – which was later removed from the competition.
They have the rather dubious distinction of also having suffered, like ourselves, a 5-0 home hammering against PSG in the group stages who trounced them by that very same scoreline on the 23 October 2013.
We’ve met them before in the Champions League of course.
Way back on the 21st of October 2003 we lost 1-0 to them on their home ground despite having a one-man advantage for most of the game when captain Glen De Boeck was sent off for the home side on 25 mins for a late challenge on John Hartson.
Celtic were terrible that night, looking disjointed and flat despite their numerical supremacy and went down to a 72-minute strike from Aruna Dindane who’s time wasting and theatrics in the wake of the goal made him a bit of a panto villain amongst the home support upon the return fixture.
In the said return we swept Anderlecht aside thanks to three goals in the first 29 mins.
Not wanting a repeat of the frustrating night in Brussels suffered two weeks previously manager Martin O’Neill switched from the 3-5-2 line-up deployed over there to a more attack-minded 4-4-2 which saw Didier Agathe starting in his more usual wing back position. Jackie McNamara had a great night on the other side and young Liam Miller scored a fantastic goal, which was sandwiched in between headers from Henrik Larsson and Chris Sutton, and looked like he would go onto great things in the hoops.
Alas, he signed for Man Utd and was pretty much never seen again.
Dindane of all people pulled one back 14 mins from the end for Anderlecht but it was no more than a consolation goal.
Anyway, all of that is in that past.
To the present or last season at least.
They won their league championship last term losing only 6 from 40 league matches, winning 24 and scoring 81 goals in the process with 36 conceded. They failed to qualify for the Champions League group stages last term but did make it to the Europa League quarter-finals where they were eliminated 3-2 on aggregate by eventual winners Manchester Utd.
Indeed it took Utd until extra time in the second and home leg in order to secure their place in the semis.
In seven home games in the Europa League last season they won five, drew one and lost only one scoring 18 goals along the way and hammering Mainz of Germany 6-1, as well as defeating Zenit St. Petersburg (2-0) and drawing with Manchester Utd (1-1). Their top goal scorer was Polish internationalist Lukasz Teodorczyk who scored 30 in all competitions.
Needless to say, he’s their one to watch.
This term has been a total mess in comparison.
Coach René Weiler was sacked despite last season’s title success, Europa League run and starting off this term by winning the Belgian Super Cup 2-1 against Zulte Waregem.
From 8 domestic league matches so far they have won three, drawn three and lost two and sit seventh in the league with 12 points, 9 points behind leaders Club Brugge. They have scored 10 goals but have also conceded the same number. So it’s pretty clear where their main problem lies.
They had also been humbled 3-0 in Germany in their first Champions League group match of the season against Bayern Munich.
But let’s be honest that result if of little consequence.
Far better teams than Anderlecht will go there and be taken apart this season.
Weiler’s rather harsh dismissal came only a week ago yesterday on the morning of the 18th of September.
Two days before it they had drawn 2-2 away with Kortrijk.
Coach Nicolas Frutos is now in charge on a caretaker basis. He’s overseen a 1-0 cup win away to second division Westerlo and a 2-1 league win away to Waasland-Beveren who sit one place below Anderlecht in the league and by all accounts were pretty wasteful in front of goal against them on Saturday evening.
Over the summer they lost Ghanian internationalist winger Frank Acheampong on a six-month loan to Tianjin TEDA F.C. of the Chinese Super League and veteran Dutch centre-back Bram Nuytinck to Udinese. Sven Kums, the attacking Belgian midfielder who clocked up no appearances for Watford last season but did play 29 games on loan at Udinese and Serbian internationalist defender Uroš Spaji? have arrived in their place.
Senegalese internationalist centre-back Kara Mbodji has also not been seen much of recently after last season speculation linked him with a move to Leicester City. He claimed he was scared to leave his house after his own fans labelled him a ‘monkey’ as a result of his desire for a transfer to the ‘promised land’ of the English Premier League.
Undoubtedly though their biggest loss from last season’s successful campaign was the 20-year-old Belgian internationalist midfielder Youri Tielemans who left in a £19 million deal to Monaco. Tielmans played 185 times for Anderlecht, 36 of them in Europe, and scored 35 goals from the centre of the park.
As a result, he became one of European football’s most coveted talents.
Without him, Anderlecht looks a shadow of the side from 2016/17.
Let’s hope that theme continues tomorrow and that we can step up to the plate and claim a rare Champions League away victory as well as three precious points.
We only have one of those from 27 previous goes.
I think we can all agree we are well overdue a second.
Paul Cassidy believes we’re in for a tough game tonight. His latest Dark Days article will be available tomorrow.