Westerlo lost 4-1 to Anderlecht on Saturday night at the Lotto Park. Before that, something happened that I wrote in my notebook, under the “pre-match” tab. The players’ bus was stopped on the road as part of a national checking operation, according to Het Belang van Limburg. All the players got off. A sniffer dog inspected the bus and the kit. About half an hour. Then Westerlo were allowed to carry on to Anderlecht.
Up to there, I was following. It’s the next sentence that stopped me. Westerlo “also briefly isolated themselves before kick-off, which largely made up for the lost time”.
Silly question, but how do you make up time by isolating yourself? I read it three times on the 7:32 train. If I isolate myself for ten minutes in my kot (student room), I’ve lost ten more minutes. Here, a team isolates itself and gets half an hour back. I asked around. I’m told it’s always been like this, fine, but what does that mean? Nobody could tell me where you isolate yourself in a football stadium, with whom, or why it’s quicker than being together.
Basketball doesn’t have that, I looked. There’s a timeout, it lasts a minute, and you know when it ends.
Inside the club, the operation caused some surprise. Issame Charaï said, according to Walfoot: “The players were clearly impressed, but it had no impact on our match”. I’ve created a new tab: “things that impress a footballer”. So far there’s one line: a dog sniffing the bag of balls.
Isolating is the team talk. I do mine in the prefab, door shut. When the door shuts, that is.
So isolating yourself means shutting a door and talking fast. I checked, and actually that’s it. Anyway, I still have a lot to learn.
It’s true, we checked: Walfoot.
