Anderlecht lost 1-0 in Zagreb. Penalty. Last minute of added time.
Added time. In my day, there was the time, and then you went home. The referee looked at his watch, a single one. Nobody knew, and nobody needed to.
Vitor Bruno recalled that the week before, against Cercle Brugge, it was Anderlecht who made the difference in those minutes. I’m not criticising. I’m comparing. A minute that gives and a minute that takes back is a cash box. Not a match.
He also said six games remain to reach the play-offs. “I still want us to reach the European play-offs. We still have six games left to get there”. Six games before the play-offs. In 1980, you played one game, then another, and the loser went home. That was called a European cup. It fitted on one page of my weekly.
Six games, Marcel. Six. That’s historic, as margins go.
I told her that zero points in two games was also a margin. She didn’t like it.
The coach named players who had started less often lately: Stroeykens, Reabciuk, Aasgaard, Degreef. Kaïs Barry, a centre-back, played right-back. A more difficult evening, he said, better after the break. A centre-back on the right. Note that I’m not against progress. In the old days we called that filling in, and nobody mentioned it the next day.
He finished with: “The sun will rise again tomorrow”. I read it at the chip shop. It is the first sentence from a coach that I have checked without my weekly. It rose.
It’s true, we checked: Walfoot.
