Thursday 23 January 2025, Union Saint Gilloise 2 Sporting Braga 1 - Europa League,
The King Baudouin Stadium
Big question is how this can be a national stadium! - With such a large site, maybe knocking it down and starting again would be a plan.
The floodlights are worth a look/visit but other than that, very poor. And it is not just the spectator facilities that were not what one expected for a European competition, the pitch was almost unplayable, looked more like a ploughed field - not sure Union will get away with not being fined by UEFA, I knew one of the UEFA staff present but he was just acting as a 'mentor' today - the new UEFA Official may have wondered if he was there for a ploughing competition rather than a football game.
The first half was poor footballing wise, the pitch was partly to blame but neither team looked like they would be challenging for the trophy in the later rounds.
Braga had very little of the ball but took the lead after 16 minutes, but most in attendance would want to forget the first half. Football wise, the second half was not much better if you wanted to watch good football but at least it was very exciting, with Union winning the game thanks to goals in the 50th and 74th minute. But that was only part of the story, A Braga player got a second yellow card in the 79th minute, and he was soon followed down the tunnel by a Union player who also received a second yellow card. The final whistle then saw a number of Braga players lose their cool and a second Braga player was shown a red card and if Soccerway is right a Union player also got a straight red.
Not a great game, but you could not fault the passion shown by the Union fans, who kept signing (and drinking) throughout most of the game.
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