2022-23 UEFA Champions League knockout stage team preview: Club Brugge
IN BRIEF
Manager: Scott Parker
Group stage performance: 2nd (WWWDLL - vs Atletico Madrid, Bayer Leverkusen, Porto)
UEFA Champions Leagues/European Cups: 0
Last season’s performance: Groups
SO FAR…
Club Brugge became the first Belgian side to make it out of the UEFA Champions League group stages since Gent managed to reach the Last 16 in the 2015/16 campaign and they are just the second side ever from the Jupiler Pro League to do it. However, they are probably the weakest side in the competition and, without sounding harsh, it also seems a bit like a ‘false position’.
Last season, they managed to win the Jupiler Pro League title in the Championship round split after finishing below Royale Union Saint-Gilloise in the regular campaign. Mid-way through that season, they lost manager Philippe Clement to Monaco and at the end of the season they lost Alfred Schreuder to Ajax and the latter has now been sacked by the Amsterdam club. Amidst this upheaval in the dugout, they then lost star man Charles De Ketelaere to AC Milan.
Blauw-Zwart did manage to recruit well in the summer transfer window and built a strong squad that was expected to develop over a couple of seasons. What took everyone by surprise is that they managed to win their opening three UEFA Champions League group stage matches.
Qualifying from a group that includes Porto, Leverkusen and Atletico is seriously impressive work and their 4-0 hammering of Porto in Porto, sandwiched between victories against the other two sides at home, set them up for a first ever run into the knockout stages of the UEFA Champions League, since the change in format in the 1992/93 campaign.
However, with their domestic form taken into account, each win seemed like an anomaly as, under the management of Carl Hoefkens, the Club struggled to keep pace with Genk, Union SG and Antwerp in the top three. Their Jupiler form was bad and they only just managed to cling on to second spot in their UEFA Champions League group with a 4-0 thrashing at the hands of Porto in the reverse fixture between the two sides being sandwiched between nail-biting goalless draws at the Metropolitano and the BayArena.
WHAT ARE CLUB BRUGGE’S CHANCES IN THE KNOCKOUT STAGES?
Club Brugge do have some really exciting players, especially for the future, with the likes of Tajon Buchanan, Kamal Sowah and Ferran Jutgla supported by stalwarts such as Hans Vanaken but their form throughout the campaign has been distinctly average, in relative terms to what to expect from the 18-time Belgian title winners.
Hoefkens was dispensed with and in came Scott Parker. The Englishman, formerly the boss of Fulham and Bournemouth, struggled badly at the start and, despite some improvement, it is likely to be the end of the road in the next round when they face one of the tournament’s dark horses, Benfica.
ODDS TO WIN THE 2022-23 UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: 200/1
Odds used are the best at Oddschecker at the time of writing
