The Bruges derby is scheduled for Monday in Jan Breydel. For Club Brugge it will be the fiftieth (!) match of the season. And that makes them the record holder in the ten largest competitions.
No team will reach that milestone sooner than Blue-Black. The season has already been a killer and there are at least 12 more matches to come. If they reach the final of the Conference League, that will be 64.
“It’s unhealthy,” says Eddie Rob, the Club’s physical trainer HBvL: “You can’t expect the players to be as fresh with such a calendar as they were at the start of the season. Impossible. It’s simply too much.”
It is therefore a utopia that Club Brugge will enter the play-offs at its peak. After so many matches, fatigue starts to weigh on you. Club may also have to play three more matches in the coming weeks with only two rest days in between.
Although the physical trainer is optimistic in terms of physical parameters. “These show that Club is one of the best students in the competition. We’ll be ready, trust me. We will provide intensity in the play-offs. Just like we have been doing for the entire season.”
There was also no holiday given last week. “I have read that some teams have given the players a week off. We have chosen to keep the bodies moving. On Saturday, Sunday and Monday we were allowed to take off the belt for a while, otherwise we worked as usual.”
