You might think OM and Belgium are light years away. On one side, the city of noise, sun and excess. On the other, a discreet kingdom, shared between dialects and influences. And yet, for more than a century, there has been a circulation of ideas, temperaments, talents and sometimes even entire destinies between the Marseille club, opposed this Wednesday to Club Bruges in a decisive match for accession to the Champions League, and football from across Quiévrain. A story of bridges. Of men. Of identities, too, as the Belgians who came to Marseille have often found their truth there.
Long before the European evenings and the legendary sidelines, OM had already been nourished by an accent from the flat country. In the 1920s, the Van Ruymbeke brothers — Douglas, Gaston, Joseph and Paul, known as “Bobby” — were among the pioneers of the Olympian adventure.
