Casper Nielsen took a few seconds to come to his senses before responding to the media. The disappointment was enormous in the chief midfielder who was well aware that Union had the chances to take the three points. Starting with this missed penalty shortly before the hour mark by Dante Vanzeir. “I had the feeling that if we scored that penalty, we were going to win the game because we would have closed everything afterwards.launched the 27-year-old Dane. But I will never blame anyone for missing a penalty. When you miss an opportunity like this, you can come off as the bad guy, but there are no bad guys in Union. We all lose together and we all win together. Dante has saved us more than once this season. And it wasn’t because of a chance or a player that we lost the game.”
First on the list
Quickly after the final whistle, Deniz Undav went to support Vanzeir who had scored a penalty at the very end of the match against Genk at the start of 2022 before missing one a few weeks later against Saint- Trond. “It’s difficult for Dante who must surely be the most disappointed guy in the whole stadium.explained Undav. He was first on the list of shooters that changes every week. I told him to forget this phase and that everyone will have forgotten this penalty if he scores on Wednesday. He will then be the hero. It was an important penalty with pressure but it happens to miss. We have to lift our heads and regain confidence.”
“We are here to support him, continued Felice Mazzù. We cannot incriminate a player because he misses a penalty; it’s part of football. We will surround him and he will be present on Wednesday with, I hope, a great desire to react.”
It would be simplistic to link the defeat of the people of Brussels to the failure of Vanzeir. During this meeting, the locals had more than one possibility to pass in front of the score but lacking in realism. “In the first half, we should have been better in certain situations against the opposing goal, rembobinait Casper Nielsen. If we score at the right time, we completely change the face of the match… We have to stay positive because we had a big game but, at the same time, we have to score. Football is about scoring goals and you had to kill them…”
For the first time this season, the Union remained silent for two games in a row. Even if this statistic should not erase all the defensive work and efficiency of recent months (81 goals scored throughout the season). “Do Ronaldo, Lukaku or Benzema score in every game? Noanswered Deniz Undav. You shouldn’t be negative towards the attackers just because there are two games without scoring. I scored 25 goals this season and Vanzeir scored 13… We had chances on Sunday but sometimes there are times when it doesn’t want to fit. Brugge have very few chances but managed to score: we have to learn from that.”
