Anderlecht’s Killian Sardella: Overcoming Adversity and Securing Success

Anderlecht: wild animals are more like cunning foxes

Crossing the desert

The road has been long. A crossing of the desert which lasted more than 18 months and which ended with the arrival of Brian Riemer. The Danish coach has not hidden his admiration for the Brussels resident whose mentality he praises. “99% of players would never have returned after being whistled by his stadium. ” In 2021, we asked Geoffrey Claes the question, who was booed by the entire public on several occasions. He had fallen into depression.

Killian Sardella was not far from it but never gave up. “He felt apprehensive about playing in front of his supporters,” explained his mother Cécile Mbamba a year ago. He also received a lot of negative messages. Insults, even. I pushed him to externalize. I was his private psychologist. His mental strength made the difference at that time. Killian had become the black sheep of his generation, but in the morning he got up and went to the club without complaining. ”

Riemer’s gift

He also had bad luck with compartment syndrome – a calf injury – whose causes and consequences no one understood and which ultimately forced him to undergo surgery.

Riemer told him he should have benched him but decided to leave him for his confidence

A liberation for the one who “felt like he was playing with boots” because his feet fell asleep during the match. It is concomitant with the arrival of Brian Riemer. Sardella, through his slaughter and his technical qualities, caught the eye of his new coach.

The Dane took him a step further by pushing him further physically and offering him constant confidence. After a blunder at the start of the season, Sardella had a discussion with Riemer. The coach made him understand that he was doing him a favor by not removing him from the team. The condition was that he return her trust. Sardella, apart from his two-month injury absence, has not disappointed again.

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The race with Debast

His winning goal against Antwerp was a sort of consecration after a lot of frustration. “The weirdest thing is that in Challenger Pro League, I scored three times in three matches. In D1, I felt like I was getting closer to a goal but it didn’t come. I had already tried with the right foot and the left foot and it didn’t work, so I tried with the knee and it went in,” he jokes. Even Zeno Debast admitted it: “It wasn’t supposed to be Killian at the conclusion. ”

Deschacht also had to wait a long time before scoring; Debast’s counter is still stuck at 0.

Sardella is appreciated in the locker room and it showed after the match. They all fell into his arms. Even Debast who knows that his next few weeks are going to be difficult. “We were arguing a lot with Killian about it because we hadn’t scored yet. He’s going to bore me with this, I know it. But now it’s my turn to score. ”

Sardella had to wait until his 95th match to put his name on the scoreboard. Debast is at 88. Hope still exists for the peroxide-haired defender to be earlier than his teammate. Patience is a mandatory virtue among defenders trained in Neerpede. Olivier Deschacht had to wait almost 80 matches before finding the net.

2024-04-02 08:33:00
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