Club Brugge

The club

Club Brugge KV were founded on 13 November 1891 as Brugsche FC, in Bruges in the Flemish west of Belgium, and claim the Latin motto "mens sana in corpore sano" from a founding by Catholic school students. They play in blue and black at the Jan Breydel Stadium, capacity 29,062, which took its current name in 1998 in honour of Jan Breydel, a fourteenth-century local revolutionary.

They are NOT Cercle Brugge, the other professional club in the same city, with whom they share the Jan Breydel Stadium; the Bruges derby between the two is described as one of the most significant fixtures of the season for supporters of both clubs, but Club Brugge are the bigger and far more decorated side. Nor should they be confused with any of the amateur clubs of the region carrying Brugge in the name.

The head coach is the Croatian Ivan Leko, a former Club Brugge player who had previously coached the club from 2017 to 2019. He was appointed on 8 December 2025, replacing Nicky Hayen, who was sacked the same day midway through a season Club Brugge went on to win.

Recent seasons

Club Brugge were Belgian champions in 2021/22, fourth in 2022/23, champions again in 2023/24 and runners-up in 2024/25. In 2025/26 they finished the regular season second with 63 points from 30 matches, 20 wins, 3 draws and 7 defeats, 59 scored and 36 conceded, then won the Champions' play-offs with 57 points from the ten play-off matches, 8 wins, 1 draw and 1 defeat, 32 scored and 9 conceded, taking the title ahead of Union Saint-Gilloise. Nicolò Tresoldi was top scorer with 19 league goals and 23 in all competitions. The same season brought the Belgian Super Cup and a Belgian Cup quarter-final exit. Simon Mignolet in goal, the captain Hans Vanaken, Christos Tzolis and Carlos Forbs were among the key squad members.

Honours and landmarks

Belgian league champions twenty times: 1919/20, 1972/73, 1975/76, 1976/77, 1977/78, 1979/80, 1987/88, 1989/90, 1991/92, 1995/96, 1997/98, 2002/03, 2004/05, 2015/16, 2017/18, 2019/20, 2020/21, 2021/22, 2023/24 and 2025/26. Belgian Cup winners twelve times and Belgian Super Cup winners eighteen times; the individual cup and supercup years were not established from the sources read here.

Club Brugge remain the only Belgian club to have reached the final of the European Cup, losing to Liverpool at Wembley in 1978, two years after losing a UEFA Cup final to the same opponent. Daniel Amokachi scored the first ever Champions League goal, on 25 November 1992, in a 1-0 win over CSKA Moscow.

Notable scorelines

The club's biggest European win is 8-0 against Floriana of Malta in the 1973/74 European Cup. They beat Olympiakos Nicosia 7-1 in the 2001/02 UEFA Cup, and beat Rangers 6-0 at the Jan Breydel Stadium on 27 August 2025 in the Champions League play-off round, 9-1 on aggregate. The heaviest European defeats are 5-0, twice in the same season, away to Paris Saint-Germain in the 2019/20 Champions League and away to Manchester United in the 2019/20 Europa League, along with a 5-1 defeat to Manchester City in the 2021/22 Champions League. The club's all-time domestic record win and record defeat were not established from the sources read here.

European record

Club Brugge first appeared in Europe in the 1967/68 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup against Sporting CP of Portugal. The great era came under way in the mid-1970s: in the 1975/76 UEFA Cup they reached the final and lost to Liverpool, 3-2 in the first leg at Anfield and 1-1 in Bruges, 4-3 on aggregate. Two years later they reached the 1978 European Cup final, again against Liverpool, and lost 1-0 at Wembley to a Kenny Dalglish goal. There were semi-finals in the 1987/88 UEFA Cup, won 2-0 at home to Espanyol but lost 3-0 away, and the 1991/92 Cup Winners' Cup, out to Werder Bremen after a 1-0 home win and a 2-0 away defeat.

The modern era has brought regular Champions League football. In 2022/23 they reached the round of sixteen and lost to Benfica, 2-0 at home and 5-1 away. In 2023/24 they reached the semi-finals of the Conference League, going out to Fiorentina after a 3-2 first-leg defeat and a 1-1 draw. In 2024/25 they entered the Champions League league phase, came through the knockout phase play-offs, and lost the round of sixteen to Aston Villa, 3-1 at home and 3-0 away; their play-off round opponent that season was not established from the sources read here.

In 2025/26 they beat Rangers 9-1 on aggregate in the play-off round, 3-1 away and 6-0 at home, then finished nineteenth of 36 in the league phase with 10 points from three wins, a draw and four defeats, 15 scored and 17 conceded. The sources read here list home wins over Monaco 4-1, Sporting CP 3-2 and Kairat 2-1, with away defeats at Arsenal, Barcelona, Marseille and Bayern Munich. In the knockout phase play-offs they drew 3-3 at home to Atlético Madrid and lost the return 4-1 in Madrid, out 7-4 on aggregate.

Quotes

"We zijn heel goed aan de wedstrijd gestart en hebben exact het plan uitgevoerd wat we voor ogen hadden" — "We started the match very well and executed exactly the plan we had in mind" — Nicky Hayen, then head coach, after the 6-0 win over Rangers that sealed the 2025/26 Champions League league phase, as reported by Voetbalkrant. No other directly quoted material was confirmed from the sources read here.

Right now (2026/27)

Ivan Leko is the head coach. Club Brugge entered the Champions League league phase directly as Belgian champions, with no qualifying to play. The draw was made at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco on 27 August 2026 and gave them Liverpool, Inter Milan, Bodø/Glimt and Napoli at home, and Aston Villa, PSV Eindhoven, Fenerbahçe and VfB Stuttgart away. They open on 8 September 2026 away to Aston Villa, the side that knocked them out of the 2024/25 round of sixteen, and the home fixture against Liverpool is a rematch of both of the club's European finals.

Domestically, after five matches of the 2026/27 Belgian Pro League they sit third with 12 points from four wins and one defeat, nine goals scored and two conceded. League fixtures against Antwerp on 13 September 2026 and Genk on 20 September 2026 are next. The club's summer transfer business and the 2026 Belgian Super Cup result were not established from the sources read here.

Sources

Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.