A crazy football Sunday in Belgium

Sixty-six years of waiting for a Scudetto. An entire city that celebrates without the symbol player of that 1956-57 season, Jef van Gool, symbol of football Antwerp, who died last year at the age of 86. Jef was never a professional footballer, but he still won what had been the last national title of the city of diamonds: five times top scorer in his homeland, he was still remembered today as a witness to a football that no longer exists and only because he was applauded by Pelé in a friendly match with Santos. He was that victory narrated by grandparents to grandchildren who had never known that joy.

A story within a story

In short, van Gool was a memory as distant as close, this would be enough to tell the long wait of the Flemish fans but the final day of the Belgian championship decided to give them one of the most exciting championships of the last decades in all of Europe. All this despite the Pro League is, beyond the high-sounding name, off the radar of the championships that count: a small paradox for a country that has had a national team that has excelled in the world rankings in recent years. However, the money is not worth the home championship for most of the red devils, so the Flemings and Walloons have to settle for a tournament divided into two stages. In fact, since the last decade, the Belgian top flight has taken place in two distinct phases (like our women’s Serie A starting this year): in the regular season everyone faces off in an Italian group at the end of which the first classified fight for the title by creating a new group in which they meet two more times. A sophisticated way to avoid the play-offs and above all to increase the number of matches and the related revenues.

Crazy Sunday of Belgian football

This bizarre championship within the championship has some value, such as keeping the fight for the title and for the European positions alive until the end. At least this year it was. With ninety minutes to go he was winning the stalemate with three teams within a point. Antwerp was first on 46 points tied with the Royale Union, Genk third on 45. In the stories of this story, the Saint-Gilles team deserves a separate chapter, a great player from the early twentieth century who only returned last two years, but there is no time to do it. On the pitch we have Genk and Antwerp on one side, Union on the other with the simplest challenge of all. At least on paper, indeed not even. If Bruges were fourth in the standings with no other domestic ambitions, they had progressed through the Champions League groups ahead of Bayer Leverkusen and Atletico Madrid in recent months. Not so little at these latitudes.

Let’s set the clocks: Sunday, 18:30. The two matches begin perfectly simultaneously, in the stands you experience a sort of football metaverse, with notifications on smartphones as important as the match on the pitch. For the first thrill, however, you have to wait for the end of the first half: Genk are the first team to score as Tolu Arokodare gives Luminus Arena the chance to celebrate the Scudetto. So it starts again at 19:30, indeed a few moments later, and the geography of the Belgian championship begins to go crazy. The center beats and Simon Adingra, Ivorian striker from Union Saint-Gilloise, on loan from Brighton where he hasn’t played a single minute, carries on his team by overtaking “De Smurfen” (the smurfs) in the standings. At 19:45 the championship seems to veer decisively towards Saint-Gilles, the credit goes to Balikwisha who equalized for Antwerp. The standings are now clear – Union 49 points, Antwerp 47 and Genk 45 – and within a quarter of an hour the Genk fans see the Scudetto dream vanish. Bryan Heynen is not there and brings the Smurfs forward, while in the capital they are ready to celebrate making the result of Genk useless: there is one minute left until the ninetieth and when everything seems ready for a return to the glories of the past, the last title of the Union SG was won in 1935, Bruges drew through Homma. In the eighty-ninth minute everything changes and the party becomes a psychodrama in two stages: Union drops to 47 points, Genk are back first with 48 while Antwerp seems doomed at 46. Meanwhile, the recovery time in the two stages is shown in perfect synchrony.

The Scudetto in the Cesarini area

At the end of regulation time de Mijnjongens Genkies (the boys from Genk) are virtually championseven here only the final triple whistle is expected to celebrate when Antwerp decides to treat itself to the impossible: in the fourth minute of added time, the talented Alderweireld remembers having played for Atletico Madrid and Tottenham and scores an extraordinary goal, in terms of technique and value, extinguishing the enthusiasm of the (no longer) Luminus Arena with the final 2-2 . It’s not all. Not even thirty seconds earlier, Bruges had scored the comeback goal through Lang, a tremendous one-two, which had demolished Union SG’s last hopes of the title.

If at 20:20, after 66 years of waiting, the scudetto had taken the road to Antwerp, at the “Joseph Marien” stadium there was no time to digest what was happening before, on the 100th anniversary, Bruges also scored the goal 3-1. It doesn’t matter, it just makes the defeat more bitter. Third place, behind Genk, for Union SG also means losing the chance to play in the qualifiers for the next Champions League.

Perhaps football is not just a game, “it is the most important of the least important things” as Arrigo Sacchi said. Maybe not today, at least not in Belgium.