Then he confessed: “It was 0-0, so we had to try something. I had a plan in mind. If you saw the names that were ready (Vazquez, Ashimeru and Leoni) you may have understood what changes I wanted to make.”
In other words: Leoni would have replaced Verschaeren at ‘8’. But when the scoreboard showed 59 minutes and 58 seconds, Verschaeren placed the ball in the small net of goalkeeper Dibusz. Even if the number 2 of the Hungarian national team should always have pushed back the leather, caressed with the inside of the left foot by Verschaeren from the entrance to the large rectangle, the joy and relief in the stands, on the bench and on the ground were enormous.
The first goal since Bakkali
Anderlecht had finally scored in the Europa League group stage, 371 minutes after Bakkali against Fenerbahçe in 2018 (2-2). Anderlecht finally scored, 246 minutes after Stroeykens’ goal against Westerlo, on September 14 (2-2). And Verschaeren finally scored his first goal in 869 minutes, after scoring his only goal of last season against Ghent (2-1) in the playoffs.
Unlike Club Bruges coach Nicky Hayen, who regretted having taken out Gustaf Nilsson in the 70th against Ghent despite his goal in that same minute – “Romeo Vermant was already ready to play.” – Hubert sent his three substitutes back to the warm-up area. “You had to be lucid. We took our time to make the right decision.” he justified. It was Stroeykens who came off for Leoni in the 69th, Verschaeren played the full 95 minutes and was man of the match.
Hubert, who only played eight minutes against him during an Anderlecht – OHL in October 2020, was delighted to have seen Verschaeren score. “The weird thing is that he scored playing in a lower position. For me, it’s his best position. He expresses himself best between the lines: he has the ability to eliminate a man and then he has the game in front of him at the right times, he can appear in the opponent’s box. He has enormous qualities, he is a fantastic player. Even without this goal, I would have been very happy with his match. .”
90% accuracy in passing
Hubert had not yet consulted the stats, but they confirm the midfielder’s good performance: he touched the ball 67 times, gave two “key passes”, had 90% accuracy in his passing and even 100% in his long passing (5 out of 5), he gave 12 passes in the final third of the field, won 5 of his 6 duels and recovered the ball three times.
In short: under Hubert, Verschaeren will no longer play in ’10’, the number he wears on his back, but in ‘8’. Did his goal against Ferencvaros definitely launch him? It’s much too early to say, we’re expecting confirmation in the coming weeks. Verschaeren had a long slump and had to endure a lot of criticism. His performances were largely insufficient to justify a transfer. However, Riemer tried everything to make him become the old Yari again. He too had it played in ‘8’. Without success.
We’ll never know, but Verschaeren might not have started against Ferencvaros if Jesper Fredberg had made the transfer of his dreams in the person of Christian Eriksen. We can imagine Fredberg’s look at half-time when he saw Eriksen’s five-star goal with Manchester United against Twente on his smartphone. An hour later, on the other hand, Eriksen was the head of the Turk at Old Trafford, given his stupid loss of the ball at 1-1. Meanwhile, Yari was the hero of Astrid Park. Everything can happen so quickly in football.
