Club Brugge opens Champions League campaign with a home game against Bayer Leverkusen
Due to the World Cup in Qatar, which will start at the end of November, the group stage will be completed at an accelerated pace. A week after the opening match, the team from Bruges will visit FC Porto on match day 2 (September 13, 9pm). Afterwards, a double confrontation with Atlético Madrid follows. On the third match day, the Brugge players Yannick Carrasco and Axel Witsel on October 4 (9pm) in the Jan Breydel Stadium, a week later on October 12 (6:45pm) Atlético will play host to blue-black. On October 26 (6.45 pm) the fifth match day follows with a home match against Porto, the group stage will be concluded on November 1 (6.45 pm) with the move to Bayer Leverkusen.
In Istanbul, a treacherous group emerged from the trophy for Club this week. FC Porto is trained by Sergio Conceiçao (ex-Standard) and is the Portuguese national champion. With Atlético, the Belgian national champion Red Devils will meet Axel Witsel and Yannick Carrasco. Leverkusen is the current employer of former Bruges resident Odilon Kossounou. For blue-black it will be the fifth consecutive participation in the group stage of the champions ball and the sixth in seven years – never before has a Belgian team done better.
It only failed in the 2017-2018 season, when Basaksehir turned out to be an insurmountable hurdle in the third preliminary round. European then quickly followed the complete elimination in the play-off round of the Europa League against AEK Athens. Nice figures, but more than three times a third place in the group stage and therefore a winter in the Europa League was not yet possible for the West Flemish. Last season there was hope after a draw against PSG and a win at RB Leipzig, but in the end Club had to undergo the law of the strongest again and ended with fourth place in the group, so that there was no more European football after the New Year . Only the top two of each group advance to the eighth finals, for the number three there is the safety net of the Europa League.