Standard opens the new competition with a duel against Cercle. Can the new trainer already set the Fiery Stede on fire? Or will Cercle continue on his miraculous save last season?
Standard:
Standard will open its 2020-2021 football season on Sclessin on Saturday. Cercle Brugge is the first opponent to get the ax. They are already ambitious at the Rouches. Standard wants to play in the top-4 this year and thus reach the reduced play-off 1. “The top 4? We are one of the best teams in Belgium, “said Selim Amallah at the press conference ahead of the duel with De Vereniging. “So we will do everything we can to finish in that top-4. We have faith in it, because we have a group that works well together and the coach has the same philosophy as Michel Preud’homme. We feel ready after the break. ”
The Rouches do that with Samuel Bastien as the occasional captain, because the coach has made him co-captain and the suspended Zinho Vanheusden as real captain. “Bastien will wear the belt for the first three matches,” said coach Philippe Montanier. The hell of Sclessin will not be able to help Standard on match day 1: “It will be difficult without our twelfth man,” Amallah realizes. “The supporters give everything for us with all their voices, now we have to do without them. But we are confident. ”
With Françcois Fornieri, Standard has a new shareholder since this week. The founder of the pharmaceutical company Mithra is helping the club financially, while Bruno Venanzi remains chairman. La Famille des Rouches, which represents all of Standard’s official supporters’ clubs, has expressed in a press release about the arrival of François Fornieri as the new main shareholder. “The arrival of Mr. Fornieri is the next step for the club. His arrival has been positively received given the links François Fornieri maintains with our club. This arrival strengthens the Belgian and especially local ties with the club. ”
Cercle Bruges:
At the beginning of July, the new technical director of the club was introduced in Monaco: Paul Mitchell. It is striking that he is going to tackle both the Monegasken and Cercle Bruges. But that is not a problem. And there will also be no preferential treatment, he claims. For example, he will treat both clubs equally. “I see AS Monaco and Cercle Brugge as a whole,” he said about his double assignment. “The project in Bruges is just as important to me as the one here in Monaco. The synergy between the two clubs must ensure that the talent present in both clubs is stimulated to the maximum in order to achieve the highest possible return. ”
The sporty staff of Cercle Brugge has a lot of connections and that has resulted in a great transfer. The Association is announcing the arrival of a new Head of Analysis: Stuart Metcalf. “Metcalf is the new Head of Analysis of Cercle Brugge. He will be responsible for performance and video analysis at Jan Breydel, “he said on Thursday’s green-black media channels. Despite his young age, the 33-year-old Brit has a lot of experience in his own country. He worked for five years at the first team Tottenham Hotspur, not a small one on the other side of the North Sea. At the Spurs he fulfilled the same function as he will take up at Cercle.
Cercle Brugge is looking for reinforcements and in their search they ended up with the defender David Bates. The Scot is owned by Hamburg, Germany, but was loaned out to Sheffield Wednesday last season. He would have already taken his medical tests at the Belgian club. However, Bates did not play much last season, as he only played once for the English club.
