Word of the day in my notebook, under the “dressing room” tab: “donderspeech”. A thunderclap speech. According to the Club Brugge players, Ivan Leko gave one at half-time against Lens on Wednesday at the Jan Breydel. Bruges won comfortably afterwards. The source doesn’t give the score, I looked twice.
Silly question, but if it was a thunderclap, what did he say? I checked, and actually nobody tells it. We know there was a speech, we know it was loud, we know it worked. The text, nothing. It’s the only speech everyone quotes without quoting it.
What I did note down is what Leko said afterwards, according to Sporza: “There was a big difference between our halves. Before the break we were defending something we didn’t have. We were scared.” And what stopped me: at the break, Bruges were leading. So you can lead and still be scared. I underlined that twice.
He also said that in the second half he saw his real team again, playing “without fear and with respect for our opponent. With courage, pressing. I’m proud of this result.” I conclude that the real team stays in the dressing room for forty-five minutes and it takes a thunderclap to get it out. I’m told it’s always been like this, fine, but what does that mean?
I asked the newsroom.
You’ll never know the text. A half-time speech stays in the Portakabin.
Leko then praised Yann Sommer, man of the match “last week and now again”, Carlos Forbs, and Joaquin Seys, who scored his first Champions League goal and whom he sees “in the Premier League soon”. Three points, well placed for the top 24, and no calculations, he warned. I did the maths on one thing only: zero known sentences from the most famous speech of the night. Anyway, I still have a lot to learn.
It’s true, we checked: Sporza.
