Aston Villa lock horns with Club Brugge on Tuesday, in the first leg of their Champions League round of 16 tie.
The two sides will battle it out for a place in the quarter-finals of Europe’s elite competition, where they will face the winner of PSG and Liverpool’s meeting.
Tuesday’s clash at Jan Breydelstadion will be the second time Unai Emery’s side have faced off against the Belgian outfit this season, having lost 1-0 in Bruges on matchday four of the league phase.
Villa Park will then host the second leg eight days on, in the latest of this season’s memorable European nights in B6.
A total of four players have represented both clubs in history, and ahead of Tuesday’s first leg in Belgium, we’re casting our minds back and looking at each of them…
Marvelous Nakamba
The player of these four with the most appearances in claret and blue, Marvelous Nakamba joined the Villans in August 2019, from the Belgian outfit.
The midfielder began his career in his native Zimbabwe, before spells in France with Nantes and then with Vitesse in Holland.
He joined Club Brugge in the summer of 2017, spending two years in Belgium and making a total of 67 appearances.
August 2019 saw him switch to Villa Park, making his debut for the club at the beginning of the 2019/20 season in a 6-1 League Cup win over Crewe Alexandra.
Knee surgery in December 2021 limited his playing opportunities for the remainder of the 2021/22 season, before he fell out of favour the following year, and was loaned to Luton Town.
He played a key role in the Hatters' promotion to the Premier League later that year, before signing permanently at Kenilworth Road that summer, having made 68 Aston Villa appearances.
Nakamba remains a Luton player to this day, and has 22 appearances under his belt already this season.
Wesley Moraes
Brazilian forward Wesley joined the Villans just two months before his former Brugge team-mate Nakamba, as Villa raided the Belgian outfit in the summer of 2019.
He arrived with a lot of excitement, having netted 30 goals in his final two seasons for Brugge, including 17 in 48 games in 2018/19.
And Wesley would make a decent impact at the start of his first season as a Villan, too, netting six goals in 22 appearances, scoring in Premier League wins over Norwich City, Everton and Burnley, a League Cup quarter-final win over Liverpool on Villa's way to the final, and at the Emirates Stadium in a defeat to Arsenal - earning him his only international cap to date in November 2019.
But that victory over the Clarets would be Wesley's last action for well over a year, as a cruciate ligament injury required surgery, which left him sidelined for close to 500 days.
Upon his return, he rejoined Club Brugge on loan at the beginning of the 2021/22 season. Further loan spells followed at Internacional and Levante, before he eventually left the Villans on a permanent basis to join Stoke City in the summer of 2023.
Boško Balaban
Croatian forward Balaban arrived in B6 from Dinamo Zagreb a few games into the 2001/02 season, having finished the year before as the top scorer in the Croatian top flight with 14 goals in 25 games.
But Balaban struggled to adapt to life in the Premier League, and made just 11 appearances, nine as a substitute, in two and a half years at Villa. He was loaned back to Zagreb in the 2002/03 season, where he rediscovered his form, scoring 15 goals in 24 games.
He was released from Villa in December 2003, allowing him to sign for Club Brugge, where he impressed. He scored 52 goals in 54 games in Belgium in 2004/05 and 2005/06, averaging almost 0.5 goals per match during his time in the Pro League.
He left in the summer of 2007 with a record of 55 goals in 116 appearances, to return to Dinamo Zagreb. A few years in Greece with Panionios followed, before he retired in 2015 following a spell with Malaysian Super League outfit Selangor.
Björn Engels
A product of the Club Brugge academy, Belgian defender Engels started his career with Villa's last 16 opponents, coming through the academy and into their professional ranks, having joined the club aged 12.
He made his professional debut in the Europa League in 2012, aged 18, against Bordeaux, though scored an own goal just one minute after coming off the bench.
Engels established himself as a first-team regular during the 2013/14 season, with his form earning him a nomination for the Young Professional Footballer of the Year, which was won by a certain Youri Tielemans, who was at Anderlecht at the time.
Injury troubles hampered his form and playing time, but didn't stop him from helping Brugge win the Belgian Pro League title in the 2015/16 season, before making his Champions League debut later that year, against Leicester City.
Despite being linked with Premier League sides in the summer of 2017, Engels made the switch to Greece with Olympiacos, before going on to spend the 2018/19 season in Ligue 1 with Reims.
Villa signed Engels in the summer of 2019, and he made his debut in claret and blue at the newly-opened Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in a 3-1 defeat, scoring his first and only goal for the club at Villa Park in the reverse fixture against Spurs in February 2020.
A thigh injury saw him miss a significant chunk of the end of that season and the start of 2020/21, meaning he fell behind Tyrone Mings and Ezri Konsa in the pecking order, before moving back to Belgium and Royal Antwerp in the summer of 2021.
