Welcome everybody to Soccer 101. My name is Taylor Rockwell. And this week, we're discussing, Graham my notes, say Argentina, but there's a big red X through it.

Graham explained.

Yeah, we are talking about the Belgian League today, and it is definitely the Belgian League, because last week we both prepared for the Argentinian League, forgetting that it was one of the first leagues we did in this series of looking at domestic leagues of qualified nations for the 2026 World Cup all the way back in, what was it, August or September, somewhere around that time. So yeah, we botched that one a little bit. So that's why we're doubling up this weekend. We're starting on Monday as we're recording with the Belgian League. Graham, can you make an argument for why I shouldn't be concerned that neither one of us could remember a thing that happened not that long ago? Like, I had absolutely no memory of discussing the Argentine League. I learned quite a bit, in fact, in preparation for the re-Argentina episode,

which we won't end up doing. But I did learn plenty about Belgium. I'm excited to do that one too.

But trying to feel like that isn't a commentary on my lack of sleep and general life state.

I mean, anyone would think that we record for like 12 hours a week every week for the last year

years actually so yeah there is that i suppose Belgium shall we let's do it all right because it is a

league that has been around for quite some time has had periods of sustained success, but certainly isn't one of the dominant

leagues we think of when we talk about the top five, top six leagues in the world, even

in Europe, but obviously has a ton of experience when it comes to talent development, long

history as we've already talked about or as I've already introduced.

So Graham, with that said, let's get into the history of professional football in Belgium.

Yeah, so first of all, the name of the Belgian top division is the Belgian Pro League or the Jopler League, which is a Belgian beer that I've actually had before and I quite liked it.

And they sponsor the league.

I quite like that it's sponsored by a Belgian beer and not like a crypto currency or an AI company. What kind of beer we're talking about? Like a quite light beer from memory. Like quite an amber looking beer. Yeah. I don't think it's like an IPA or anything like that. But it was decent as I remember it. It's like... I just wonder if it was like a Belgian quadruple or whatever where it's like 20% and it's going to hurt your head in the morning. I mean it probably is given the part of the world that it's from. I always remember the Scottish government warning, Scotland fans going over to the Euros that German beer was a little bit stronger than we were used to.

But yeah, I quite like that as sponsored by a Belgian beer.

And league football in Belgium dates back to 1895 when there were seven clubs in the division.

That's what they started with.

That makes it the second oldest act of football league in Europe behind only the English Football League.

And as with a lot of countries around the world, you had British expats, excuse me, taking

the game to Belgium, they worked in port cities, and you also had students from England studying

in Belgium.

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