RSC Anderlecht : AEK Athen

After a short day trip to The Hague - a surprisingly rather sleepy place - we headed to Belgium. Our first destination was Brussels, which is home not only to Brussels FC, founded in 1891 (currently in the 2nd division), but also to the better-known RSC Anderlecht.

We wanted to pay the latter a visit during the Europa League game against the AEK Athens. We had already bought the tickets on the Internet and only had to be picked up at the stadium. Since we were anyway with the car on the way, the first way led us times directly to the stadium. The "Constant-van-den-Stock" stadium is located in the middle of the Brussels suburb "Anderlecht" and is surrounded by numerous pubs (but more on that later). Fortunately, the ticket office had already opened in the afternoon and so we could receive our tickets early.

After we had maneuvered our car through the narrow streets of Brussels (if you can avoid that with Park&Ride, I would advise everyone to do so) and checked into our hotel (once again ibis), we started a small round in Brussels before we took the subway to the stadium.

During the journey, we were then stopped from entering the metro by the police along with all the other waiting passengers. This was then filled with several 100 AEK Athens fans (that the all from Greece had traveled I doubt now times *g *) which also made themselves immediately loudly noticeable. The traffic stood for some time completely still, because one had to wait for all Athenians. After a few minutes, the subway then still went and you could finally continue the last rest of the way.

Arrived at the stadium awaited us immediately a surprise. In the numerous pubs and pubs around the stadium were flow coolers and beer tables built in front of the locals where the Jupiler flowed in streams. And that at a Europa League game where you usually get served only non-alcoholic Latschen as drinks. After one had bought still a rießen sausage (culinary with the German Bratwurst to compare) and had made a large bow around the snail soup offered there (no joke!), the least occupied Jupiler stand was headed for around itself a few "pintje" to treat.

Just in time for kickoff, one was in the stadium where white Anderlecht flags for the choreo were handed over to us right away, which one naturally also swung along. As in Amsterdam, the fan blocks were also represented here on two sides of the stadium and also made a good atmosphere, whereby the side opposite us was more likely to set the tone.

Anderlecht had the game over the entire first half under control and so it was only a matter of time until Anderlecht shot in for the deserved lead. Mbark Boussoufa was the scorer of the much-celebrated 1:0. In the break, one then wanted to have a snack, but unfortunately the selection of the snack stalls set up in the stands was limited to beer and Coke. However, we were less surprised by the meager offer than by the fact that alcoholic beer was also served in the stadium. For a Europa League game rather unusual - but we complained of course not ;-)

In half-time two, the picture had not really changed - Anderlecht made the game and AEK was also present. Nevertheless, it took until the 70th minute before RSCA could fix the deserved 3-0 home victory - and the first in this year's Europa League - with a double strike. After a lap of honor of the players and the obligatory self-timer photo, it went again to our "regular pub" before one then somewhat intoxicated the way home.