KRC Genk (or Racing Genk) is a professional Belgian football team from Genk, Limburg Province. It was founded in 1988 and is nicknamed the "Masters" and "Miners".They play their home games at Luminus Arena, which has a capacity of 23,718 seats.

Genk's modern history began only in 1988 after two teams named Winterslag and Thor Watersheim merged into one. It is noteworthy that it is Thor who owns the biggest European success in the club's history - the semi-final of the 1982/83 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, in which Watersheim lost 2:5 to Aberdeen on aggregate.

The "miners" acquired their own arena only in 1999. The stadium for 24 thousand spectators became the fourth largest stadium in Belgium and was called "Phoenix" until 2007 - and there the beer sponsor Kristal Aken came to the team, therefore the name was changed to "Crystal Arena".

Championships and national cups with super cups are, of course, good and important, but first of all, when the word "Genk" is heard, fans in Ukraine remember Malinovsky. Genk's major achievement is the kind of footballer Ruslan grew up into in Belgium.

The Masters won their first championship in the 1998/99 season under the leadership of Eme Antyunis.

The Shakhtar were two points ahead of Bruges only in the last game of the season, gaining 73 points in 34 rounds, but during the championship they could not defeat the silver medalists of the Pro League (1:1 and 0:2). Branko Stullar and Suleiman Ulare became the best scorers in the Antyunis team then, scoring 18 and 17 goals, respectively.

The next championship happened in the 2001/02 season, and the situation repeated itself - Bruges lagged behind Genk by two points only in the last round. But Shakhtar beat the rival twice during the season (3:2 and 2:1). The top scorer this time was “master” Wesley Sonck, who scored as many as three dozen goals in a season.

In the 2010/11 season, the championship playoffs were already in progress in the Pro League, because Genk, who was in second place after 30 rounds, snatched the third trophy of the League of Zupile with a fight.

Genk scored 19 points in 10 playoff games, which is seven less than Standard, but the Liege still finished second, because in the main championship they took only sixth place.

Genk won the 2018/19 season already under Malinowski not without difficulty, becoming only the second in the championship playoffs, but ahead of Bruges due to the fact that the “miners” were in first place in the overall standings.

4-time champion and 5-time Belgian Cup winner Genk (Koninklijke Racing Club Genk) has rarely been able to declare himself on the European arena, but Ukrainian fans know this team quite well. How else, if one of the best Ukrainian footballers playing abroad, Ruslan Malinovsky, began his career in its composition.

Genk received the right to play in the main club tournament five times, but only three times the team from the mining town got to the group stage.

Thus, in the 2002/03 season, the Smurfs made their way to Group C, defeating Czech Sparta 2: 0 and 2: 4 by the away goal rule. In the group of the Belgians, Real Madrid, Roma and AEK were waiting, but Genk could not even catch the third line. They played with the Spaniards 6:0 and 1:1, with the Greeks they scored two draws 0: 0 and 1:1, and with the Italians - 0:1 and 0:0.

In the 2011/12 season, Genk passed two qualifying rounds to make the group to Chelsea, Bayer Leverkusen and Valencia. The group of deaths ended for the Belgians with three clean away defeats with a total score of 0:14 and three draws at home.

Finally, in the 2019/2020 season, Genk entered the group directly, but played there even worse than before - Liverpool and Salzburg defeated the Miners twice, 4:1-2:1 and 6:2-4:1, respectively, and Genk first rolled a zero draw, and then - lost 0:4.

In addition to Aimé Antyunis, with whom Genk entered the Pro League and became the champion of Belgium for the 1998/99 season for the first time, it is important to note the coach, under whose leadership the “miners” became vice-champions and winners of the 2020/21 Belgian Cup.

John Van den Brom took over the Masters at the end of 2020 and brought Genk back to the list of the best Belgian teams without any problems.

Jelle Vossen became a pupil of the Miners, and from 2007 to 2015 played 248 matches for Genk, having scored 105 goals in them. Wesley Sonka has only 117 matches for the Masters, but in them he managed to score as many as 80 goals.

Coach: Wolf Hannes (Germany) Age: 39

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