Antwerp

In the 94th minute against Genk in the 2022/23 season, Toby Alderweireld scored the goal that gave Antwerp its fifth Belgian championship — the first in 66 years, following a title drought that had stretched back to 1957 and included thirteen seasons stuck in the second division after 2000. That same campaign the club also lifted the Belgian Cup.

The club traces back to 1880, when a group of English workers in the city founded it as a general sports association; a separate football section split off in 1887 as Antwerp Football Club. In 1895 it became the first club to register with the Belgian Football Association, taking matricule No. 1, and in 1920 it was granted the "Royal" prefix. That seniority is the source of the nickname carried ever since: The Great Old.

Home matches are played at the Bosuilstadion, in use since 1923, where capacity was pushed from 16,000 to 21,000 in December 2025 with the addition of a temporary east stand. The team plays in red and white.

Before the modern revival, the club's best-remembered European run came in 1993, when it reached the final of the Cup Winners' Cup and lost to Parma. Francis Severeyns scored Antwerp's goal in that final — the same Severeyns who topped the Belgian league's scoring charts in 1988 with 24 goals. Decades later it was Alderweireld, as captain, who put his name on the moment supporters had waited two generations for.