Glen De Boeck

De Boeck was born in Boom. He was trained as a player at the local FC Boom, where he made his debut at the age of 19 and immediately promoted with the team to the Belgian first division. After that promotion, he moved to KV Mechelen, where he would play 109 matches in three seasons. In the summer of 1995, he moved to Anderlecht. In the late 1990s, he was criticized by pundits, who claimed he was not good enough for Anderlecht. He eventually increased his technical performances to become one of the best defenders in the Belgian First Division in the early 2000s. Manager Aimé Antheunis was convinced of his intelligence and leadership abilities and appointed him captain of the team in 2001. With Anderlecht, he would ultimately win three national championships, the final one in 2004. In February 2005, De Boeck decided to end his career due to another heavy knee injury. By then, Anderlecht had found a new articulate defender with leadership qualities, Vincent Kompany.

De Boeck was a rather static libero. His nickname among journalists was “the cathedral”. However, he was also intelligent, tactically and organizationally strong, and had good positional play.

De Boeck made his international debut with Belgium on 6 October 1993, against Gabon (a friendly), going on to represent his country at two World Cups, with three appearances combined. Although he had become a regular in the squad, he had to miss two matches at the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea due to injuries. In total, he would play 36 matches for Belgium.

De Boeck was directly snapped up by his last club Anderlecht to become an assistant manager, together with Daniel Renders. On 23 April 2007, it was revealed that De Boeck would become manager of first division side Cercle Brugge at the end of the 2006–07 season. He succeeded Harm Van Veldhoven, who had already chosen to leave for Germinal Beerschot. On 1 February 2008, the board of directors at Cercle declared De Boeck had signed a new contract until 2011, as he also became the football section's technical director, being made responsible for the further development of the football team. In March 2009, De Boeck denied K.R.C. Genk in signing him as their new coach. Instead he chose to stay with his current club Cercle Brugge. He left Cercle in June 2010 and was named the manager of Germinal Beerschot who were looking for a successor to Jos Daerden who left to become an assistant coach at Dutch club Twente. On 30 November 2010, after continuous bad results and disagreements on the management board, he was fired as coach from Germinal Beerschot. At the start of the 2011–12 season De Boeck was appointed the new manager of VVV-Venlo, but halfway through the season on 6 December 2011, following a 7–0 defeat to Heracles Almelo, he resigned as manager of VVV-Venlo. In November 2012 he signed for Waasland-Beveren, but was released one year later. After spells at Mouscron-Péruwelz, Kortrijk and Lokeren, De Boeck became a prominent expert on Belgian television before being re-appointed…