RSC Anderlecht (the full name of the Royal Sporting Club Anderlecht) is a Belgian professional football club from Brussels. It was founded in 1918 and is the most titled club in its country. Their current stadium is Constant Vanden Stock or also called Lotto Park, which has a capacity of 22,500 people.

The defining decision to create the club was made by a group of football fans in the Concordia bar, located in the commune of Anderlecht, and their goal was to popularize this sport, because at that time other communes of the Brussels metropolitan region had already made significant progress in this regard and even participated in international matches. True, at first the club bore the name Anderlechtua and only in 1933 acquired its current name.

The club quickly went through the registration process and joined the country's football system, and after the First World War it reached the top division, although in those years it was extremely unstable. However, in 1935, Anderlecht received the status of a royal club. The first serious successes came after the end of World War II, when the purple and white took one of the dominant positions in Belgian football and began collecting titles of various sizes, including on the international arena, becoming the base club for the Belgian national team for many years.

Despite the fact that there are other professional clubs in Brussels, Anderlecht did not succeed in a purely urban confrontation in the derby style, and the main rivals of the purple and whites are two more representatives of the three most titled clubs in the country - Bruges and Standard. The matches with Bruges are called the big Belgian derby, and in 2021 this confrontation turned 100 years old. While the advantage is on the side of the capital's footballers, who have 65 wins against 45 for the black and blue, 54 more matches ended in a draw.

Andrelecht has been without trophies for four years, but even so it remains the most titled club in the country. The Brussels team has 64 trophies of various levels, namely: 34 national champion titles, nine Belgian Cup victories, three Belgian League Cup victories, 13 Belgian Super Cup wins, a UEFA Cup, two Cup Winners' Cups and two European Super Cups.

Anderlecht won his debut title of national champion only after the Second World War, in the 1946/1947 season, and since then only 12 times found himself outside the top three, occupying a dominant role in Belgian football for many years. In the 60s of the last century, the capital's footballers even set a national record, winning gold medals five times in a row. A total of 65 sets of championship medals are in the assets of purple and white, of which 34 are the highest.

At one time, Anderlecht made a lot of noise in Europe and managed to replenish his collection of trophies with five continental cups at once. The purple-whites could celebrate their first success in the European arena back in the 1969/1970 season, when they reached the Fairs Cup final, but in the two-match final confrontation on aggregate they laid down their arms in front of the London Arsenal.

Subsequently, the Brussels team made it to the decisive match of this tournament three more times, but won only once. In the 1977/1978 season, Austria was defeated in the final (4: 0), but the duels with Hamburg (1976/1977) and Sampdoria (1989/1990) were in favor of the opponents. It is worth noting that Anderlecht reinforced both of his victories in the Cup Winners' Cup with triumphs in the UEFA Super Cup, defeating the European Cup winners Bayern (1976) and Liverpool (1978), respectively.

The Belgian club also has two consecutive UEFA Cup finals. And if in the 1982/1983 final duel with Benfica ended with Anderlecht's victory, then a year later Tottenham pulled out the lucky ticket in the penalty shootout. As for the European Cup, the Belgian champion reached the semi-finals twice (1981/1982, 1985/1986), but the Champions League playoffs are still a dream for the most titled club in the country.

The legendary Belgian coach Raymond Gouthals has been at the helm of Anderlecht three times, but his most successful first experience with the Brussels club, which is largely associated with success in the European arena. Guthals twice led the purple and white to the European Cup final, winning only once, but victories in the matches for the European Super Cup against the then powerful Bavaria and Liverpool looked even more impressive.

In his best years, Joseph Mermans received many offers from the leading clubs in Europe, but devoted 15 years of his career to Anderlecht, forever going down in the history of the club with a goal rate of 367 goals scored. And it is still difficult to say whether someone will ever be able to surpass this result.

Coach: Kompany Vincent (Belgium) Age: 34

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