Belgium provides the officials for our make or break Champions League clash against Olympique Lyonnais in France on Wednesday night.

Frank De Bleeckere is widely regarded as Belgium's top referee and has been on the FIFA list since 1998.

He started out refereeing in 1984 after suffering an injury as a player, and it only took him ten years to progress to Belgium's top league. He has now over 30 Champions League matches under his belt over a period of 9 seasons. He has refereed in the World Cup in 2006 and the EURO Championships in 2008, and he is on the provisional list for the World Cup in South Africa next year.

Only last month he was refereeing in the Under-20's World Cup tournament in Egypt where he refereed a total of four games including the Final when Ghana defeated Brazil 4-3 on penalties.

He has refereed us three times before and each time we have ended up running out the winners, although all those matches have been at Anfield. By contrast he has also refereed Lyon three times before in the Champions League, but all those games have been away from home and Lyon remain unbeaten with two wins and a draw. He has though refereed Lyon at home in the UEFA Cup back in February 2002 when a last minute Sidney Govou strike cancelled out an early Slovan Liberec penalty. The Slovaks went on to win the second leg 4-1.

A sales manager for a company that manufactures doors and stairs off the park, he speaks fluent English and French as well as German so he is an ideal choice for this game.

He has refereed only one Champions League game so far this season, but it was one of the top games as AC Milan came away from Real Madrid with a 3-2 win.

His assistants for the game are the same as in the Bernabéu with Peter Hermans and Walter Vromans running the lines. This time around Joeri Van De Velde is the fourth official.

Some memorable matches involving Belgian officials and Liverpool:
26/11/69 (A. Delcourt) - Vitoria Setubal go through on away goals despite being beaten 3-2 at Anfield in the old Fairs Cup.
10/03/71 (F. Geluck) - Alun Evans scores a hat-trick against the mighty Bayern München in the 1st leg of our 4th round Fairs Cup tie.
05/04/05 (F. De Bleeckere) - Our first match against Juventus since Heysel sees us take a slender 2-1 advantage to Italy.
13/07/05 (J. Van de Velde) - A Steven Gerrard hat-trick sees off Welsh part-timers TNS at Anfield.
19/02/08 (F. De Bleeckere) - Late goals from Kuyt and Gerrard give us a two goal first leg lead against Inter Milan.
10/03/09 (F. De Bleeckere) - Real Madrid are totally outclassed 4-0 at Anfield as Dossena scores his first Liverpool goal in the rout.