Kortrijk

Kortrijk go into this season in the Belgian top flight.

The registration number the club carries, matricule 19, points back to a Football Club Kortrijk founded in 1901, a side that merged with FC Courtraisien in 1918, picked up the "Royal" prefix in 1927, and went through a Dutch-language rebrand in 1951 before the current K.V. Kortrijk took shape in 1971, when Koninklijke Kortrijk Sport folded together with Stade Kortrijk. It is that older number the modern club still answers to.

The Guldensporenstadion opened on 17 August 1947, replacing a ground on Meensesteenweg that itself had replaced a patch at the Hippodroom Ter Linden racecourse and, before that, a garden known as the Tuin van Callens. The current club did not move in until the 1976/77 season, the year it first reached the top division.

Kortrijk's nearest thing to a defining night came in the 2011/12 Belgian Cup final, lost 0-1 to Lokeren. Domestically the club has twice topped the Second Division, in 1905-06 and again in 2007-08, and three times won the promotion play-offs, in 1976, 1980 and 1998.

Thorgan Hazard, who came through at Standard Liège and Anderlecht rather than the Kortrijk academy, wore the red and white in the 2024/25 season.

None of it, though, stirs the crowd like the fixture with Zulte Waregem.