Almost thirteen years ago, on May 8, 2008, Belgian football in one fell swoop. With his Porsche, 26-year-old Sterchele crashed into a tree along the N49 in Vrasene. More than a decade later, Bruges is no longer a vale of tears, but the number 23 is still honored as if it were yesterday.

“In fact, the pain remains great to this day,” Boonen said in a 2018 interview. “François’ death is still a part of me that is gone. Anyone who has not lost a child cannot really understand that. It’s indescribable. Twenty years from now I will still feel the same. Then you’re not going to ask me the same thing again, are you?”

However, Mama Sterchele recently caught the corona virus and was in hospital for several days, where she died of the disease. The news was announced by Patrice Lemper, councilor in An. “It was with great sadness that I learned of the death of Marleen Boonen, who did so much for the most underprivileged through her association VZW Rêves d’enfants François Sterchele. She had a lot of courage. She was an example,” it sounds.