Lowzer's Low Country Revue: Belgian Jupiler Pro League and new beginnings

Since moving to Belgium in September 2014 one of the things I have enjoyed most is the country's fantastic selection of beers. The numerous and varied types of Belgian beers grows all the more staggering when you live here. Among my favourites is a beer called Lupulus, which is a blonde unfiltered and unpasteurised tripel. It is a veritable champagne of beers and I urge you to try it. 

After regaling friends with my Belgian beer-based anecdotes, I tend to confide in them one of my other main observations about Belgium: my disappointment with the poor coverage of the fantastic Belgian Jupiler Pro League.

The past weekend I watched the 'Battle of Flanders' between KAA Gent and Club Brugge. It was an entertaining and pretty high-quality game. I wrote about it here.

After the game ended there was very little in the way of stats. This was disappointing to me as I bloody love stats. It also meant that I could not really analyse the game in the way I wanted to: I wanted to see number of corners, shots on target, possession, etc. and so on. The tv station did not grant my wish. Alas...

Prior to the game I surfed around looking for some information and found various bits-and-bobs but nothing comprehensive. In fact, when I read Valentin Stolbunov's excellent literature review of football analytics I clicked on his link to ESPN FC, which he explains has some general matchday data from football leagues across the world. As such, I was hoping to find some basic stats on the Belgian Premier League. To get an idea of my reaction to the results this search yielded, let's play a quick game. It's called "Spot Belgium or Belgian". The objective is to see if you can find the word 'Belgium' or 'Belgian' in the next two screen grabs:

Screenshot of ESPN FC 24/02/2015

Can't find it? Me neither. Leagues as diverse as the Swiss Premier League, the Northern Irish Premier League, French Ligue 2 (!!!!) and the Chiléan League are covered but nowhere (NOWHERE) can you find any link to Belgian top-flight football, which is all the more surprising considering how much everyone was talking about the Belgian national team, Les Diables Rouges, not so long ago (see here - from Grantland - and here - from the Guardian).


I tried a similar search a few weeks ago and I found nothing. The tweet below shows my interaction (in my basic French) with the Belgian Premier League. Gist of it is: they don't currently circulate stats after games (?!?! I know right) and are in negotiations to do something about this next season. Apparently. 

@SatThereThinkin on n'a pas encore de stats pareilles...on est en négociation avec plusieurs fournisseurs...TBC
— Pro League (@ProLeagueBE) February 11, 2015

Brushing aside my cynicism about things never getting done as expected in Belgium I wait with bated breath for these stats. In the meantime, I will make do with what is over at soccerway.com ...

So, with these pages over the coming weeks I will try to populate your screens with as much information (and basic stats) that I can obtain on Belgian football. Wish me luck, and I hope you can join in with me.