On Sunday evening, Union will play against Anderlecht in play-off 1, after another season at the top of the league. Off the field, a trio holds the keys to Union: Chris O’Loughlin, Philippe Bormans and Alex Muzio. What is their secret recipe?
The Union Sint-Gillis recipe is appreciated by gourmets. In the sporting cell of every European club they wonder what magical ingredients the people of Brussels use. They spice up their story with unexpected and spectacular twists. And every time the recipe is rethought, it produces another top dish. The question on everyone’s lips is: how do they do that?
Anyone who knows life behind the scenes in the Dudenpark knows that the answer consists of three names. Three men who are at the top of the pyramid in terms of decision-making and seem to have a computer in their heads: all the choices they make are correct. They are sporting director Chris O’Loughlin, CEO Philippe Bormans and chairman Alex Muzio. They hold the keys to the club.
Player Reports
If you take the yellow-blue stairs to the first floor in the Union training center in Lier, you inevitably come across the inconspicuous door of Chris O’Loughlin’s office. The Northern Irishman spends most of his time there. Behind him hang shirts by Thierry Henry, Thomas Vermaelen and Benni McCarthy, framed with the care that characterizes a true collector. His eyes are focused on computer screens displaying player reports. Players we probably don’t know yet, but whom the fans in the Dudenpark will soon enjoy.
Alex Muzio continues to set the tone of Union’s transfer policy.
It is almost an obsession: O’Loughlin, who started out in Belgium as an assistant to Yannick Ferrera at STVV, wants to find out everything about the football players who are in Union’s strictly confidential database. Before leaving his office and heading to the training ground, he has carefully researched the lives of potential transfer targets. He not only checks their social media, he also reads the smallest interview, in any newspaper or on any website, in detail. For example, Dutch winger Bart Nieuwkoop managed to convince the Brussels scouting cell not only with his performance on the field, but also through his participation in Bij Andy in de auto. This format consists of twenty-minute videos on YouTube, in which Andy van der Meijde, former Ajax, Inter and Everton player, takes his guests in the passenger seat of his car and asks them questions. The answers Nieuwkoop gave convinced the Unionists that he could contribute something extra to the group of players.
Right mentality
Like any self-respecting recruitment executive, O’Loughlin is someone who wants to broaden his horizons. When his club had to make an evening trip to Lommel, he took advantage of this by crossing the German border in the morning to see SV Meppen at work in the lower divisions, the then club of Deniz Undav. He was impressed by the striker, who would become the top scorer of the Belgian league in 2022, but not because of an offensive action. It was something else that O’Loughlin had noticed: after fifteen minutes of play, and while he had not yet received a useful ball as an attacker, Undav sprinted at a corner for the opposing team as if his life depended on it, just for his defensive assignment to be carried out. Undeniably a sign that he had the right mentality.
The last step is always to convince the player in question to choose Union’s project. O’Loughlin also knows his stuff in that respect: impeccable presentations and a clear discourse – with not just nice words – about the values of the club and the core of players. The fact that newcomers to Union rarely fail on a human level is largely thanks to him.
Born conductor
Philippe Bormans was not yet 30 when he became the youngest club director in Belgian football. We are in 2014 and 27-year-old Bormans is CEO of STVV, which returns to the highest division. Because he has a bad feeling about the Japanese management that succeeds Roland Duchâtelet, he says goodbye to the Canaries in 2018 to take up the same position at Union. He quickly distinguished himself from his colleagues with his own methods.
Bormans is sometimes compared to Vincent Mannaert, who did excellent work at Club Brugge for a long time. But while the blue-black manager had sometimes allowed himself to be carried away by his emotions, that never happened to Bormans. He is not such a manipulator as some of his colleagues, who rely on their cunning. The CEO of Union is a cold pragmatist, so distant that it sometimes makes his interlocutors uncomfortable. Even when yellow-blue missed out on the title for the second year in a row last season, he did not seem fazed. Results never seem to affect him, he gives the impression that the daily reality of Belgian first division football leaves him cold. But anyone who talks to him soon notices that he knows everything.
Cool and calculated
It is clear as day: Bormans knows his trade. He knows very well what he is doing and never deviates from his line, no matter how difficult a particular choice is for him. When he makes a decision, he turns off his emotions. It is also said of Bormans that he runs his club like an Excel sheet, where players are boxes and salaries may never exceed the limits. Anyone who colors outside the lines at Union will be kicked out. Cool and calculated.
It is therefore not unusual that Bormans is unreachable a few hours before the transfer market closes. Maybe he spends time with his family or takes care of his horses, another passion of his. Even when he was under pressure to approve the transfer of Casper Nielsen to Club Brugge, the CEO did not give in. He involved Mogi Bayat in the transfer to arouse the interest of KAA Gent and thus increase the transfer price. Pragmatic and numerical, regardless of the emotions that overwhelm many directors.
In love with the stadium
Every love story begins with a coup de foudre. That was certainly the case with Alex Muzio, whose passion for Union arose when he fell in love with the Joseph Mariën Stadium. The brick facade gives the main stand the allure of a stadium from the English lower divisions. The chairman immediately felt at home. However, the real strong man of Union is not originally from Brussels. People sometimes say that he lives on the Eurostar, so often he takes the train from Brussels South to London, where he has been living since he was eighteen. Muzio was born in Brighton and went to work in London for Starlizard, the company of Tony Bloom, former main shareholder of Union. Starlizard is a consultancy firm that provides data to help people gamble on various sports, including football.
But Muzio did not come to Dudenpark to gamble. As soon as he was placed in charge of the club by Tony Bloom, he clashed with Marc Grosjean, the experienced coach at the time, over how he wanted to improve his team. With a view to possible transfers, the Liège native drew up a list of players who knew Belgian football well. Muzio contrasted unknown players who had better statistics according to his program. It was inevitable that their paths parted, for the Englishman’s vision became the Union’s vision. The least you can say is that history has proven him right.
The real linchpin
There are many in the world who say that Alex Muzio is the real lynchpin of the Brussels triumvirate. First of all, because he is the one who chose the other two, after a long and painstaking selection procedure. But also because he still sets the tone of Union’s transfer policy, together with Chris O’Loughlin and his right-hand man Gauthier Carton. Together they have one thing in common with agents who offer players: if the name is not on their list, they are not interested. The line is clear and everyone points in the same direction.
That probably makes the real difference for Union: logical interventions are often enough in football to achieve better results than the others.
Union Sint-Gillis: the secret behind the success of yellow-blue
