Club Brugge is training for a CL match against Porto

“I don’t want my players to think about the possible consequences of group wins”, coach Carl Hoefkens looks ahead. “Now I just want to try and win the next game.” One point is enough against the Portuguese champion to be sure of first place. That can be an advantage in the eighth finals, because then blue-black will meet a number two from a different group. In the first leg in Porto, Club Brugge demonstrated with a 0-4 victory.

(read more below the photo)

Smiling Simon Mignolet

We saw a smiling Simon Mignolet at training this morning. He is the only goalkeeper in the Champions League who has not conceded a single goal in four games. Mignolet and Club are on a dream campaign.

“I don’t want to deviate from the principle that the next match is the most important,” said Hoefkens, who, as usual, does not look too far into the future. “I want to see that attitude in my players. We have to stay hungry. Porto for its part has to win. So I expect a loaded game, with a lot of emotion, tension and duels. We will have to keep the peace and be careful in possession of the ball as yonder.”

Club will have to do something different against Porto than on Saturday in the Jupiler Pro League. Against a ten-man Union, the Bruggelings lost a 0-2 lead to a 2-2 final score. Casper Nielsen: “Immediately after the game it was difficult, but that is part of football and we already analyzed what could be improved. We will learn from it and have to set our sights on the next match. We put our heads together and now look ahead again Fortunately we didn’t have much time to be sad because the next assignment is already around the door. We are ready for the next match.”