RSC Anderlecht
Also written as Anderlecht.
The club
Royal Sporting Club Anderlecht were founded on 27 May 1908 by a group of enthusiasts at a cafe in the Brussels municipality of Anderlecht. They play at Lotto Park in Astrid Park, the ground known for most of its life as the Constant Vanden Stock Stadium, which holds 22,500. The club are the Purple and White, or simply Sporting; the purple and white colours are said by the club's own history to derive from a flower parade. The abbreviation RSCA is used everywhere in Belgium.
Recent seasons
Anderlecht have not won the Belgian title since 2016/17 and the decade since has been uneven. They finished sixth in 2020/21 on 44 points from the 30-match regular season. They qualified for the Conference League in 2021/22 and finished second in the 2023/24 regular season, their best recent showing. The exact final positions and points for 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2024/25 were not confirmed from the sources read here and are deliberately not stated.
The 2025/26 season is documented. Anderlecht finished sixth in the regular season with 44 points from 30 matches, 12 wins, 8 draws and 10 defeats, then went into the Champions' play-offs and finished fourth on 33 points from ten further games. They reached the Belgian Cup final and lost it to Union Saint-Gilloise. Thorgan Hazard was top scorer with 13 league goals and 15 in all competitions. It was a season of three managers: Besnik Hasi was dismissed on 1 February 2026, Edward Still took over and left on 9 February 2026 for Watford, and Jeremy Taravel finished the season as caretaker. In Europe, Anderlecht went out of Europa League qualifying at the second round and were eliminated in the Conference League play-off round.
Honours and landmarks
Anderlecht are the most decorated club in Belgium: 34 Belgian first division titles, more than any other club, and nine Belgian Cups. They hold the Belgian record of five consecutive championships, from 1963/64 to 1967/68. In Europe they have won five trophies: the Cup Winners' Cup in 1976 and 1978, the UEFA Cup in 1983, and the European Super Cup in 1976 and 1978.
Notable scorelines
Anderlecht's record European win is 10-1 against Haka of Finland in 1966/67. The finals define them. They beat West Ham United 4-2 in the 1976 Cup Winners' Cup final and Austria Wien 4-0 in the 1978 final, and lost the 1977 final 2-0 to Hamburger SV. The 1983 UEFA Cup was won over two legs against Benfica, 1-0 at home and 1-1 away. They lost the 1984 UEFA Cup final to Tottenham Hotspur on penalties after 1-1 in both legs, lost the 1970 Fairs Cup final to Arsenal despite winning the first leg 3-1, and lost the 1990 Cup Winners' Cup final 2-0 to Sampdoria after extra time. A domestic record win and record defeat were not established from the sources read here.
European record
This is a club with 64 seasons of European football behind it and a genuine claim on the competition's history, but the recent record is a good deal more modest than the trophy cabinet. The two Cup Winners' Cups and the 1983 UEFA Cup came in a nine-year purple patch between 1976 and 1984 in which Anderlecht reached six European finals. Since then the club has been a regular qualifier rather than a contender, and in the last two seasons has been in the drop zone of the European pyramid rather than at its top: in 2025/26 they lost in the Europa League second qualifying round and then lost again in the Conference League play-off round, so they played no league-phase football at all. That is the context for the current campaign, which began for them at the Europa League second qualifying round. They came through it against Hammarby of Sweden, drawing 1-1 in Stockholm on 23 July 2026 and winning 3-1 at Lotto Park on 30 July 2026, 4-2 on aggregate.
Quotes
The quotes below were published in French by La DH/Les Sports+ and are reproduced in the original with an English rendering marked as a translation.
- "Dans de conditions tres difficiles - la chaleur, meme le terrain, les fans du PAOK qui ont fait beaucoup de bruit - je dois dire chapeau a mon equipe." - Vitor Bruno, Anderlecht head coach, to La DH/Les Sports+, 7 August 2026. Translation: "In very difficult conditions - the heat, even the pitch, the PAOK fans who made a lot of noise - I have to say hats off to my team." https://www.dhnet.be/sports/football/division-1a/anderlecht/2026/08/07/apres-le-succes-au-paok-vitor-bruno-a-felicite-ses-joueurs-meme-si-anderlecht-peut-faire-mieux-en-possession-defendre-est-aussi-un-art-7HKSNHDNE5AYLMB5R3J6VEPAGA/
- "On s'est tous battu. C'est ca l'Anderlecht que je veux voir. C'est ca notre identite." - Vitor Bruno, Anderlecht head coach, to La DH/Les Sports+, 7 August 2026. Translation: "We all fought. That is the Anderlecht I want to see. That is our identity." https://www.dhnet.be/sports/football/division-1a/anderlecht/2026/08/07/apres-le-succes-au-paok-vitor-bruno-a-felicite-ses-joueurs-meme-si-anderlecht-peut-faire-mieux-en-possession-defendre-est-aussi-un-art-7HKSNHDNE5AYLMB5R3J6VEPAGA/
- "Defendre est egalement un art. On l'a fait tous ensemble. Meme les attaquants ont fait leur boulot defensif." - Vitor Bruno, Anderlecht head coach, to La DH/Les Sports+, 7 August 2026. Translation: "Defending is also an art. We did it all together. Even the forwards did their defensive work." https://www.dhnet.be/sports/football/division-1a/anderlecht/2026/08/07/apres-le-succes-au-paok-vitor-bruno-a-felicite-ses-joueurs-meme-si-anderlecht-peut-faire-mieux-en-possession-defendre-est-aussi-un-art-7HKSNHDNE5AYLMB5R3J6VEPAGA/
- "On ne peut pas toujours jouer du football champagne. Parfois, il faut se contenter d'un vin." - Vitor Bruno, Anderlecht head coach, to La DH/Les Sports+, 7 August 2026. Translation: "You cannot always play champagne football. Sometimes you have to settle for a wine." https://www.dhnet.be/sports/football/division-1a/anderlecht/2026/08/07/apres-le-succes-au-paok-vitor-bruno-a-felicite-ses-joueurs-meme-si-anderlecht-peut-faire-mieux-en-possession-defendre-est-aussi-un-art-7HKSNHDNE5AYLMB5R3J6VEPAGA/
- "On n'est qu'a la mi-temps de notre rencontre. Le PAOK est habitue de jouer ce genre de matchs. Rien n'est joue." - Vitor Bruno, Anderlecht head coach, to La DH/Les Sports+, 7 August 2026. Translation: "We are only at half-time in this tie. PAOK are used to playing these matches. Nothing is settled." https://www.dhnet.be/sports/football/division-1a/anderlecht/2026/08/07/apres-le-succes-au-paok-vitor-bruno-a-felicite-ses-joueurs-meme-si-anderlecht-peut-faire-mieux-en-possession-defendre-est-aussi-un-art-7HKSNHDNE5AYLMB5R3J6VEPAGA/
Right now (2026/27)
This is Anderlecht's 119th season. Vitor Bruno was appointed head coach on 23 June 2026 after the managerial churn of the previous campaign. The summer business has been modest: defender Giulian Biancone arrived from Olympiacos on 19 June, defender Leo Petrot as a free agent on 2 July, and midfielder Lukas Ambros from Gornik Zabrze on 10 July. Forward Keisuke Goto left for SC Freiburg on 11 June and midfielder Nathan De Cat for TSG Hoffenheim on 10 July, while Ibrahim Kanate went on loan to 1. FC Kaiserslautern until 30 June 2027. Fees for these moves were not confirmed from the sources read here. The Pro League campaign began with a win: after one match, on 9 August 2026, Anderlecht were fifth with three points and a goal difference of plus one.
Anderlecht reached the third qualifying round by beating Hammarby 4-2 on aggregate, 1-1 away on 23 July 2026 and 3-1 at home on 30 July 2026. The European tie they are in now is the Europa League third qualifying round against PAOK, and the first leg went as well as it could have. Anderlecht won 1-0 in Thessaloniki on 6 August 2026, Mihajlo Cvetkovic scoring inside the first minute, and then defended for the rest of the evening in heat and noise. The second leg is at Lotto Park. Bruno's own reading of it, quoted above, was that the tie is only at half-time. It is worth noting for tone that Bruno also used his post-match remarks to offer condolences to PAOK over the deaths of seven of their supporters in a car accident.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.S.C._Anderlecht https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.S.C._Anderlecht_in_European_football https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%9326_RSC_Anderlecht_season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_RSC_Anderlecht_season https://www.espn.com/soccer/match/_/gameId/401902942/anderlecht-paok https://www.dhnet.be/sports/football/division-1a/anderlecht/2026/08/07/apres-le-succes-au-paok-vitor-bruno-a-felicite-ses-joueurs-meme-si-anderlecht-peut-faire-mieux-en-possession-defendre-est-aussi-un-art-7HKSNHDNE5AYLMB5R3J6VEPAGA/ https://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/match/2049127--paok-vs-anderlecht/
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.