St. Truiden

Sint-Truiden go into this season in the Belgian Pro League still carrying the yo-yo habit that has defined much of its recent history, most recently in 2014-15. Staying up, more than any trophy chase, remains the standing test each August brings at Stayen.

The club traces back to 23 February 1924, when it took the colours of Sint-Truiden itself, yellow and blue, and with them the nickname De Kanaries. The high point on the pitch came in 1965-66, a runner-up finish in the Belgian First Division that the club has never repeated.

Derby day means Genk, the Limburg rivalry that pits the province's two clubs against each other, sharpened further whenever Charleroi is the opponent and the old Flanders-Wallonia divide gets dragged into it. Further back, Cercle Tongeren was the local name that mattered, a fixture against a club just 20 kilometres away that dates to that first 1924 meeting.

No name is tied to the club more plainly than Simon Mignolet's. He came through the Sint-Truiden academy between 2006 and 2010 before the move that took him to Liverpool and the Belgian national goal. Odilon Polleunis still sits above him in the record books on goals, 89 in the top flight, enough for a Golden Boot in 1968, but it is Mignolet's route out the door that Sint-Truiden fans bring up first.