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| Full name | Royale Union Saint-Gilloise | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nickname(s) | Les Unionistes Union 60 The Old Lady The Apaches[1] Matricule 10 | |||
| Founded | 1 November 1897 | |||
| Ground | Joseph Marien Stadium | |||
| Capacity | 9,400[2] | |||
| Owner | Alex Muzio[3] | |||
| Chairman | Alex Muzio | |||
| Head coach | Sébastien Pocognoli | |||
| League | Belgian Pro League | |||
| 2023–24 | Belgian Pro League, 2nd of 16 | |||
| Website | Club website | |||
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Royale Union Saint-Gilloise [y.njɔ̃ sɛ̃.ʒil.waz], commonly referred to as Union Saint-Gilloise and abbreviated as RUSG, is a Belgian professional football club originally located in the municipality of Saint-Gilles, in Brussels, although since the 1920s, it has been based at the Joseph Marien Stadium in the neighbouring municipality of Forest.
The club is one of the most successful in the history of Belgian football. The club won eleven Belgian championships between 1904 and 1935, making it the most successful Belgian club before World War II, but fell into decline after relegation from the First Division in 1973. The Apaches took part in the first European competitions, the Challenge International du Nord, the Coupe Van der Straeten Ponthoz and the Coupe Jean Dupuich between 1898 and 1925. The team colours are blue and yellow and its matricule is 10. The team was traditionally popular with the working-class communities of central Brussels (the Marolles) and southern Brussels.
On 13 March 2021, after defeating local rivals R.W.D. Molenbeek, Union were promoted back to the Belgian First Division A, marking their first appearance in top-flight football in 48 years. The following year, they finished top of the table at the end of the regular season, the first club in Belgian history to do so the season after promotion to the top flight. Union would go on to finish second in the champions play off, securing Champions League qualification for the first time ever in club history, and after being eliminated in the third qualifying round, reached the quarter-finals of the Europa League.
- ^ Les Apaches was a Parisian Belle Époque violent criminal underworld subculture of early 20th-century hooligans, night muggers, street gangs and other criminals. After news of their notoriety spread over Europe, the term was used to describe violent street crime in other countries. In fact, the term crystallizes the anxiety aroused by urban youth since the 1880s: aging society sees in it the manifestation of a youth that refuses to work. The phenomenon also implicitly accused the Republic and the working class world of "leaving young people to their own devices and neglecting education, that pillar of bourgeois culture", thus creating a generation destined to give birth to new criminals. The apache appears as an anti-social figure marked by hatred of the "bourgeois", the "cop" and "work", refusing to waste his youth on the factory floor. Bringing all these realities together under a common banner gave rise to a veritable moral panic, developed by newspapers aware of the soap opera's popularity. Indeed, the Apache motif was used to excess in the press, and probably with exaggeration, particularly by major french dailies. He was assigned to Union Saint-Gilloise at the time. In 1901 the Apaches was the first second division champions, and with their rough play, they gave the honor division team a fright. "Apaches_(subculture)".
- ^ Stadium, Union Saint-Gilloise clubwebsite
- ^ "Statement president and owner Alex Muzio".