Aywaille-d and Handsome: Sampling Belgium's Fourth Tier

Aywaille - a lovely little piece of Belgium

 First of all, if you've not managed to read my Standard Liège blog yet, what are you doing with your life? More important things? Ah, okay, that's fair. But if you want to get a sample of my Belgium trip prior to la deuxième game of my trip, you can do so right here. In summary, Standard Liège is an absolutely brilliant place to take in some Belgian football, whether it's your first visit to Belgium, or your umpteenth. It's certainly somewhere I'd relish returning to should the opportunity arise again.

One thing I didn't cover in this blog, however, was the insanity of Belgian football, or rather the madness of how the top division is structured at the very least. Perhaps it's something you'll have heard about before, with the league splitting into three separate parts - the top six (Championship Group), the middle six (the European play-off group), and the bottom group (the regelation play-off group).

The salient issue is not necessarily the splitting, which happens in countless leagues throughout Europe for better or worse. The issue is that the total number of points is halved prior to this stage. If we take last season as an example, Genk were nine points clear at the top going into this split, but ultimately lost out to Union Saint-Gilloise to the title, with Club Brugge also finishing above them. 

For all intents and purposes, it has been said the league is unfair, and it would be difficult to disagree. Surely a huge advantage should mean something, and Genk will undoubtedly still be reeling at having lost the title because of this format. In fact, Union SG lost out on the title in similar fashion the previous season, with their seven point lead ultimately rendered futile, and Club Brugge winning the league that year.

Nor was it the first time Genk lost out having gone into the split at the top, having also done so in 2022-23. In any case, complaining about it now is ultimately pointless, given that the league is changing next season. Firstly, the division will expand to 18 teams, meaning no automatic relegation will occur - only one possible relegation depending on how one team does in the relegation play-off. From what I understand from the various French articles on the league format change, the 2026-27 season will see no more play-offs or splits, arguably marking a return to some kind of normality.

In any case, the reason I cover the craziness of the top flight is to give an overall picture of the Belgian game - you have the Pro League at the very top, with the Challenger Pro League underneath. Though some big guns play in the second tier at the moment, it does also sadly contain the occasional B-Team. Below this division, you have Division 1, which is split into a Flemish Division, and a Walloonian Division, and this is the case all the way down to the fifth tier.

That said, the fourth tier is two regions split across three divisions - a little bit like the Czech league system which has the Moravian regional third tier, and two Bohemian third tier leagues. This is similar in the fourth tier, before the fifth tier splits even further into four distinct leagues - two Walloonian, two Flemish.

Beyond that, the leagues become amateur and entirely localised down to the ninth tier, but for today our focus is on the fourth tier, where Aywaille would play host to Brainois in a match already having bene billed as 'on this weekend' for any doubters out there. 

Aywaille v Brainois - a taste of the 'real Belgium'?

Following a lengthy but phenomenally enjoyable first day of the trip, Sunday would be a little quieter, but equally as enjoyable and fascinating. While Monday was the day to explore as much of the city as possible via the excellent T1 tramline (pictures on my Instagram should you wish to see them), Sunday involved a very relaxed morning and a surprisingly good Spaghetti Carbonara at a restaurant that labelled itself as Indian.

It was while in that restaraunt - alone I should add until a couple arrived - that I realised trains to Aywaille would not be anywhere near as frequent on a Sunday; therefore, there was potential that I would arrive late to the game. Judging from the train times available, it would only be a few minutes, but in any case, it wasn't the best start.

The train itself was terminating at Luxembourg, with all kinds of fascinating stop names along the way - Aywaille, Coo, and a near-namesake, Gouvy. It seemed to be a fairly infrequent train, running once every two hours or so, and thankfully on this occasion it wasn't delayed. The journey was only around half an hour or so, and assuming the ground was near the station was my first error.

Assuming it would be a straightforward walk was my second, as I needlessly ascended a hill toward a dead end instead of going in the right direction! Thankfully I did eventually head the right way, and took in a gorgeous little town of around 11,000 people, arriving to the vicinity of the ground just as the match kicked off. 

I'd first assumed the visible game on approach to be Aywaille v Brainois, but the youth team seemed to be in action nextdoor. On walking all the way around to find the only entrance (on the other side of course), I was thankful to see the game was still scoreless and only four minutes in. I paid my 10 Euro entry, all the while doubting my French even more while in a conversation I struggled to understand. In any case, the locals were friendly enough.

With Aywaille in the bottom half and Brainois in play-off contention, it would have been fair to assume the away side - based in Brain l'Alleud, just south of Brussels - would have been favourites. Aywaille hadn't read the script, however, and took the lead before half-time with Yanis Mokhatari finishing 1-on-1 following an excellent through ball.

The dominance continued into the second-half, as Abdoullah Akdim doubled the hosts' advantage. Billy Bokoto made it three, before Yanis Mokhatari received his marching orders. Brainois did dominate the rest of the game, but being 3-0 down made for a real uphill struggled, as did the performance of Aywaille's superb goalkeeper. 

The game ended, and I had to rush back to Liège due to the infrequency of the trains, though the backdrop, the match itself, and the town of Aywaille provided a lovely afternoon of tranquility and surprisingly good football. You could argue 10 euros to be a little steep for fourth tier Belgian football, but Belgium is one of the more expensive countries in Europe after all.

On walking back to the station along the river, I was naturally greeted by a snowstorm, arriving just in time, however, to catch the next train back to Liège. Random though the choice of game may be, it very much paid dividends, even if perhaps I didn't have as much time in Aywaille itself as I may have liked.

Five things you didn't know about Aywaille

1. Residents of Aywaille are known as Aqualiens, with Aywaille deriving from the Latin Aqualia loca - and a translation of that is roughly "area full of water". Having traipsed through it in the snow, I can confirm it is an area full of water.

2. Aywaille's main attraction are Les grottes de Remouchamps, or the Remouchamps Caves, as well as an animal park and an array of castles. 

3. Some of the more well-known living celebrities from Aywaille include Julian Quintart - an actor who is absolutely huge in South Korea apparently, and cyclist Philippe Gilbert.

4. Prominent Dutch feminist. educator, and children's writer Nellie van Kol spent much of her life in Aywaille, playing a huge role in the socialist cause of the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries, also becoming one of the first women to have work published in the Dutch socialist journals of the time. 

5. As for the football club, Royal Aywaille were founded in 1933, and have spent most of their existence in the lower reaches of the Belgian game. The club have only spent one season in the third tier at their peak, though this was sadly back in 1940. More recently, they've only been back in the fourth tier since promotion in 2024.