CONNECTIONS
Part 3 Thomas Buffel

Thomas was born on February 19th 1981 in Brugge and grew up in Ruddervoorde. It was with the local youth side that Thomas first came to the attention of some of the big names in Belgium. Cercle Brugge captured the signature of the 10 year old Thomas despite offers from Anderlecht and Club Brugge. Given that his father is a fan of Cercle maybe this isn't a big surprise. During his time with the youth team at Cercle, where they won the national youth league, he became a regular player with the Belgian youth side. His appearances for the national led to his move to Feyenoord in Holland.

Thomas signed for Feyenoord as a 15 year old and spent time in their youth set up. In his first year with the under 18 side he was chosen as league player of the season. The following season he became part of the first team. After an early season injury resulted in Thomas spending most of the season with the second team he decided to move to Excelsior on loan.

During his two seasons with Excelsior Rotterdam (a Feyenoord feeder club) Thomas was named their player of the year in both years. He also helped Excelsior gain promotion to the Eredivisie, but after 63 appearances and 27 goals Thomas was on the move again. His performances were again noticed by Feyenoord and he was recalled for the start of the 2002-2003 season. In the next two seasons there Thomas was a major part of the first team before he refused to sign a new contract at the start of the 2004-2005 season. This led to six months playing as "the judge" (constantly on the bench!) before Rangers came in with £2.3 million for his signature. In all he made 90 appearances for Feyenoord scoring 34 goals. He also made his debut for Belgium in a 0-1 win in Andorra in October 2002.

His debut for Rangers on January 9th 2005 could not have come in a more high profile match - Celtic at Celtic Park in the Scottish Cup. This was to be his only Scottish Cup appearance that season as Rangers lost 2-1 to their bitter rivals. He was to have more success with the Scottish League Cup. Thomas made a scoring debut in a 7-1 win over Dundee United in the semi-final on February 2nd. Having failed to score during January Thomas then scored in the next league match, a 3-0 win over Hibernian at Ibrox on February 12th, and scored a further 3 league goals during Rangers last title winning season. He was also part of the side which won the League Cup with a 5-1 win over Motherwell on March 20th. In the following season Thomas helped Rangers to the last sixteen of the Champions League, the first Scottish side to do so, where they lost on away goals to Villareal after finishing 3-3 on aggregate. In January 2007 Thomas was close to leaving Rangers with Hannover 96 interested. The deal fell through with Thomas unable to agree terms with the Bundesliga side. The following month he had knee surgery and missed the rest of the season. Following 62 appearances and 11 goals for Rangers Thomas has now moved to Cercle Brugge. Almost turning full Cercle!?

Andrew Boyd