Blauw-Zwart love to celebrate their heroes of the past. Just as they did last season against Borussia Dortmund, Sporting Lisbon and Juventus, chairman Bart Verhaeghe once again welcomed a fine group of former players back to the Jan Breydel Stadium. This time it was a group of former players who themselves faced AS Monaco between 1988 and 2018.
A flashback to last century: Henk Houwaart, now 80, was the coach setting the tone for Club at that time. His side held AS Monaco to a 1-1 draw at Jan Breydel, but were beaten 6-1 in the Principality. Much more recently, in 2018, Ivan Leko was in charge. His team drew 1-1 in Bruges before falling 4-0 in Monaco.
On Thursday evening, an hour and a half before Club Brugge’s 75th Champions League match, chairman Bart Verhaeghe warmly welcomed more than 15 former players from those two eras. In his speech, he underlined how important the club’s old guard remain: “You are deep in our hearts and you carry the DNA that has made our club great in every aspect.”
Among those in attendance were Jan Ceulemans, Marc Degryse, Peter Creve, Luc Beyens, Philippe Vande Walle, Pascal Plovie, Dany Verlinden, Alex Querter, Tony Mols, Yves Audoor, Kurt Hinderyckx, Henk Houwaart, Ruud Vormer, Mats Rits, Siebe Schrijvers and Thibault Vlietinck. Each of them received a shirt with their name and number, along with a framed team photo from their time in blue and black to take home.
