Silly question, but where do you put your hands when you slide? Anderlecht lost 1-0 in Zagreb, in the Europa League. In the 93rd minute, Oleg Reabciuk, who was making his debut, handled the ball in his own box. VAR stepped in, the referee pointed to the spot, and Dion Beljo scored it by shooting down the middle while Colin Coosemans picked a side.
I read the reactions in HLN (a Flemish daily), on the 7.32 train, notebook open at the tab marked “hands”. Léo Pétrot said Oleg couldn’t do much else: “He can’t chop his hands off.” I wrote that down. It’s the most honest answer I’ve read since I got here.
Andrew Omobamidele went further. He explained that everybody has a different view of handballs these days, and that you can’t slide with your hands behind your back. So I tried. In the corridor of my kot (student digs), in socks, hands behind my back. I slid a metre and stopped with my forehead. I checked: in a slide, arms are useful.
In basketball, touching the ball with your hand is the whole point. Here it’s a verdict, handed down after a pause in which the entire stadium waits for a screen to decide.
For completeness: Anderlecht hit the bar twice in the same move, goalkeeper Kotarski pushed away a Tristan Degreef header and saved in front of Winkler and Aasgaard, and Kaïs Barry made a decisive tackle ten minutes from time. None of that counts in the table. The handball does.
Sliding with your hands behind your back, I run that on Tuesday. Nobody turns up on Wednesday.
I opened a new tab in my notebook. It’s called “what to do with your arms”. It’s empty.
It’s true, we checked: HLN.
