Tough week in the data wars.
In the days leading up to the Champions League match between Newcastle United and Union Saint-Gilloise, the incredible story of the Belgian champions and league leaders got its first proper mass-audience airing. Here was a club who went from the third tier of Belgian football to the Champions League in the space of a decade. Not just that, they did it on a shoestring of a shoestring of a shoestring.
Union SG are so small-time that they had to move the game to Anderlecht’s home ground because their stadium only holds 9,400. Yet here they were, somehow facing off as equals. Everyone loves a story like that.
And so the football media turned its jeweller’s eyepiece on Union this week. You couldn’t move for articles and podcasts and clips on How They Do It.
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