KV Mechelen

KV Mechelen

Full name	Yellow Red Koninklijke Voetbalclub Mechelen
Nickname(s)	The Yellow Reds, Malinois, Malinwa, De Kakkers
Founded	1904
Ground	AFAS-stadion Achter de Kazerne
Capacity	16,672 [1]
Chairman	Johan Timmermans
Manager	Dennis Van Wijk
League	Belgian First Division B
2017–18	Belgian First Division A, 16th (relegated)
Website	Club website
Home colours Away colours Third colours

Yellow Red Koninklijke Voetbalclub Mechelen^[2] (Dutch pronunciation: [ˌjɛloː ˈrɛt ˌkoːnɪŋkləkə ˌvudbɑlklʏp ˈmɛxələ(n)]), often simply called KV Mechelen (Dutch pronunciation: [kaːˌveː ˈmɛxələ(n)]) or KVM, or by their former French naming FC Malinois, is a Belgian professional football club based in Mechelen in the Antwerp province. KV Mechelen plays in the Belgian Pro League. They have won four Belgian championships and one Belgian Cup, as well as the 1987–88 European Cup Winners' Cup and the 1988 European Super Cup. They collected all of their honours in the 1940s and in the 1980s.

KV Mechelen was founded in 1904 and, in 1921–22, promoted to the first division. After two successive relegation and promotion, they were back for good between 1928–29 and 1955–56. In the 1960s and 1970s, the club had several promotions and relegations between the first and second division. From 1983–84 to 1996–97, they had a successful first division spell, with a title and several second- and third-place finishes. During that period, they also won a European Cup Winners' Cup and they reached the same competition semi-finals as well as the European Cup quarter-finals.

KV Mechelen declined in the late 1990s though they had two more spells at the highest level from 1999–2000 to 2000–01 and in 2002–03. At the end of that season, the club did not receive their Belgian professional football license. They were therefore relegated to the third division with a nine-point penalty. After two promotions in 2004–05 and in 2006–07, KV Mechelen returned to the first division.

The club's outfits are a striped yellow and red shirt with black shorts and socks. They play their home matches at the Argosstadion Achter de Kazerne, where Argos is their stadium sponsor and Achter de Kazerne means 'Behind the Barracks'. The stadium has been named so because there used to be barracks next to stadium. KV Mechelen fans have a long-standing rivalry with KRC Mechelen.

History

The club was founded in 1904, a few months after the birth of city rival KRC Mechelen. The club had a first successful period in the 1940s. During World War II, in 1943, the club won their first domestic title. The second title came a few years later, in 1946, and in 1948 the club was successful again. After that, the club fell back. In 1954, they managed to finish third, only one point behind champions Anderlecht, but that was their last good season. Two years later, Mechelen was relegated to second division. During the 1960s and the 1970s, Mechelen went up and down between the first and second division.

The club enjoyed a spell of both domestic and European success in the period from 1987 to 1992. During these five seasons, Mechelen won one Belgian championship and one Belgian cup title. They also finished second in the Belgian league twice and lost the Belgian Cup final twice. After winning the domestic cup title in 1987, and hence qualifying for the European Cup Winners' Cup, they completed the extraordinary achievement of winning this tournament in 1988. Mechelen are the last Belgian team that has won a European trophy.

KV Mechelen seemed to be on its way to becoming one of the top clubs in Belgium, but quickly declined when their chairman Cordier (who owned the rights to most of their players) was forced to sell many players due to his company's bad results. On 10 June 2007, the team achieved promotion to the Belgian First Division. Two years later in 2009, KV Mechelen played the final of the Belgian Cup, losing it 2–0 to Genk. One year after that, they stranded in the semi-finals with a 2–2 draw and a 1–0 loss against KAA Gent.

After a successful 2010 and four seasons for the yellow reds, coach Peter Maes decided to leave Malinwa and signed a four-year contract with Lokeren. Malinwa made a deal with Marc Brys to take over from Maes. Marc Brys was coach of FC Den Bosch, a second division team in the Netherlands. After two seasons he was sacked and Harm Van Veldhoven was appointed for the 2012–13 season. Van Veldhoven also could not lead KV Mechelen to Play-off 1, the clubs' recent unspoken ambition. He was fired in December 2013. At the end of the 2013–14 season KV Mechelen appointed Aleksandar Janković as head coach. Despite Janković's inability to lead the club to Play-off 1, Janković left for topclub Standard Liège and Mechelen had to appoint a new manager. The club ended up choosing Yannick Ferrera for the vacant job, who had just been fired as manager of Standard Liège.

Honours

European record

KV Mechelen's Belgian Cup win in 1987 saw the club participate in UEFA club competition for the first time in their history, entering the 1987–88 European Cup Winners' Cup. It proved to be a largely successful campaign, with Mechelen reaching the final undefeated by winning seven of their eight matches en route. They then went on to defeat Ajax 1–0 in the final, Piet den Boer scoring the decisive goal early in the second half.^[3] The following season Mechelen played 1988 European Cup winners PSV in the UEFA Super Cup, and defeated the Dutch side 4–1 on aggregate. Mechelen remain the last Belgian club team to have won a European club competition.^[4]

As of December, 2008.

A = appearances, GP = games played, W = won, D = drawn, L = lost, GF = goals for, GA = goals against.

Matches

• Q = qualification round
• PO = play-off
• R = round
• Group = group stage / Group 1 = first group stage / Group 2 = second group stage
• 1/8 = eighth finals / 1/4 = quarter-finals / 1/2 = semi-finals
• F = final

Season	Competition	Round	Country	Club	Score
1987–88	UEFA Cup Winners' Cup	1R		Dinamo București	1–0, 2–0
		2R		St Mirren	0–0, 2–0
		1/4		Dinamo Minsk	1–0, 1–1
		1/2		Atalanta	2–1, 2–1
		F		Ajax	1–0
1988	UEFA Super Cup	F		PSV	3–0, 0–1
1988–89	UEFA Cup Winners' Cup	1R		Avenir Beggen	5–0, 3–1
		2R		Anderlecht	1–0, 2–0
		1/4		Eintracht Frankfurt	1–0, 0–0
		1/2		Sampdoria	2–1, 0–3
1989–90	European Cup	1R		Rosenborg	5–0, 0–0
		2R		Malmö FF	4–1, 0–0
		1/4		Milan	0–0, 0–2 (AET)
1990–91	UEFA Cup	1R		Sporting CP	2–2, 0–1
1991–92	UEFA Cup	1R		PAOK	0–1, 1–1
1992–93	UEFA Cup	1R		Örebro SK	2–1, 0–0
		2R		Vitesse	0–1, 0–1
1993–94	UEFA Cup	1R		IFK Norrköping	1–1 (AET), 1–0
		2R		MTK Hungária	5–0, 1–1
		3R		Cagliari	1–3, 0–2

Current squad

As of 23 July 2018^[5]

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Position Player 1 GK Bram Castro 2 DF Jules Van Cleemput 3 DF Lucas Bijker 4 DF Seth De Witte 5 DF Arjan Swinkels 6 DF Germán Mera 7 MF Tim Matthys 8 MF Onur Kaya 10 FW Igor de Camargo 11 FW Nikola Storm 12 GK Sofiane Bouzian 14 DF Maxime De Bie 15 DF Edin Cocalić 16 MF Rob Schoofs 17 MF Trova Boni

No. Position Player 18 DF Mamadou Bagayoko 20 FW Gustav Engvall 21 FW Clément Tainmont 22 DF Alexander Corryn 23 FW Milan Savić 26 DF Hannes Smolders 27 DF Laurent Lemoine 28 GK Arno Valkenaers 29 FW William Togui 30 MF Franck Berrier 33 MF Gaétan Bosiers 34 GK Michael Verrips 36 FW Mathieu Cornet 37 MF Abou Ouattara 40 MF Yacouba Sylla

For recent transfers, see List of Belgian football transfers summer 2017.

Out on loan

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Position Player 77 MF Glenn Claes (at Lommel)

Managers

Chairmen history

Date Name 1904–06 Théophile Delvaulx 1906–51 Francis Dessain 1951–77 Patrick Dessain 1977–82 Herman Candries 1982–92 John Cordier

Date Name 1992–94 Willy Dussart 1994–97 Jef De Graef 1997–02 Willy Van den Wijngaert 2003 Mark Uytterhoeven 2003– Johan Timmermans

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to KV Mechelen.

• (in Dutch) Official website
• (in Dutch) Fanclub website
• KV Mechelen at UEFA.COM
• KV Mechelen at EUFO.DE
• KV Mechelen at Weltfussball.de
• KV Mechelen at Football Squads.co.uk
• KV Mechelen at National Football Teams.com
• KV Mechelen at Football-Lineups.com