Club Career
Staelens started his professional career with K.V. Kortrijk at already 23, and his two solid seasons there attracted the attention of top division giants Club Brugge KV.
There, he proceeded to form a legendary midfield partnership with Franky Van der Elst, that would last nearly a decade. Staelens played 369 games in all competitions for the club, scoring 105 goals.
At already 34, and more often than not playing in the backline, he moved to R.S.C. Anderlecht, still being instrumental in the club's back-to-back championships (2000 and 2001), and winning the Belgian Golden Shoe in 1999; however, he did not finish his last year, moving to Japan's Oita Trinita in early 2001 and retiring shortly after.
Staelens took up coaching subsequently, first with R.E. Mouscron. After only two months at V.C. Eendracht Aalst, he returned to first club Kortrijk as its general manager, only returning to the benches in 2007, as assistant coach at K.S.V. Roeselare.
Staelens kept that role in the subsequent years, with the other team from Bruges, Cercle KSV.
Read more about this topic: Lorenzo Staelens
Famous quotes containing the words club and/or career:
“I think there ought to be a club in which preachers and journalists could come together and have the sentimentalism of the one matched with the cynicism of the other. That ought to bring them pretty close to the truth.”
—Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971)
“From a hasty glance through the various tests I figure it out that I would be classified in Group B, indicating “Low Average Ability,” reserved usually for those just learning to speak the English Language and preparing for a career of holding a spike while another man hits it.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)