Vandenbempt about trainer bomb at Club Brugge and “knockout” KAA Gent: “Hayen pays an ungrateful price, but Leko is an ideal replacement”
Crazy Monday in Belgian football. Club Brugge announced the departure of Nicky Hayen and the arrival of Ivan Leko. The latter was even discussed at KAA Gent. Peter Vandenbempt considers the coaching bomb: “At Club they had the impression that Hayen lacked the energy to reactivate the playing group.”
Just before 5 p.m., the Belgian football world was turned upside down by the message from Club Brugge, which fired its trainer Nicky Hayen and stole Ivan Leko from Ghent.
“Did I expect the timing of this news? Certainly not,” our analyst Peter Vandenbempt also said. “It will also play against Arsenal in the Champions League in two days.”
Club Brugge lost to STVV this weekend and scored a poor score of 3 out of 12 in the competition. “I was in Washington at the time and after that defeat I told a colleague: ‘As long as Club doesn’t do what it did with Carl Hoefkens at the time… A change of coach’. And I didn’t expect that it actually happened today.”
What was Club Brugge’s motive for taking action? “The Club realizes that a number of gaps in the core of players need to be filled. They will work on this in the winter. But in any case, the board believes that more is possible with this team and more needs to be done. They believe that Hayen is not the right man for that.”
In any case, the board believes that more is possible with this team, but Hayen is not the right man for that.
Peter Vandenbempt
Although Club Brugge has done their best to avoid the word “crisis” in recent weeks, it was difficult to avoid the fact that things on the field – especially in terms of results – continued to revolve.
“Club Brugge presented the best football in the preliminary round of the Champions League, against Salzburg and Rangers. There was that great match against Monaco, that unforgettable evening against Barcelona. But in the Jupiler Pro League it hardly played a good match. I was therefore openly surprised that Mechele was indignant after the cup match and thought we were too critical.”
Club has already lost five times in the competition this season. “That’s almost a third, right? And the matches they won were eight with a difference of one goal and Club could have lost quite a few of those matches. In terms of performance, level of play, conviction and dominance, Club has not achieved what could be expected from this team.”
And Club Brugge also sets the bar high in the Champions League. “They would like to be a little closer to the better teams in Europe. That was the case a few times, but that hopeless defeat against Sporting Lisbon – perhaps a kind of overestimation – also had a negative impact.”
Changing of the guard
Perhaps as surprising as Hayen’s dismissal was the fact that Club Brugge immediately announced Ivan Leko as his successor. At KAA Gent they completely disappeared.
“It has everything to do with the release clause in his contract, which would amount to approximately one million. If another club pays it, the coach can simply leave. But no, it is not exactly conducive to relations between the two supporter groups. This is a tremendous blow, especially for AA Gent,” Vandenbempt estimates.
“With Ivan Leko, they had found the ideal trainer to manage that drowsing group of players. He brings fire and energy, he shook up the club and the dressing room. It took some trial and error, but it was the suitable trainer that Ghent needed at that moment.”
If you need someone who can liven things up, you need Ivan Leko.
Peter Vandenbempt
“And the same goes for Club Brugge. If you look at the comments that are made, there is the utmost respect for Nicky Hayen. It is ungrateful that he is now paying the price. He still became champion, he reached the semi-finals of the Conference League and he won the cup. Last season there were good performances in the Champions League …”
“But they still had the impression at Club Brugge that he lacked the energy to reactivate the playing group. And if you need someone who can bring life to the brewery, then you need Ivan Leko.”
“At the same time, it is also a remarkable choice, because Club Brugge has acquired a bit of a reputation for wanting – and I say that with respect – to appoint good trainers. Trainers who walk in line. And that is the very last thing you can say about Ivan Leko. He is someone who will immediately put his energy into the club and will always speak his mind.”
Good choice?
Did Club Brugge make the right choice to opt for a shock effect?
“Look, in an ideal world you can ask a lot of deontological and ethical questions, but the football world is what it is. In this scenario, Club Brugge could not actually choose a better replacement than Ivan Leko. He knows the club, he is already fully functioning in the competition and he can bring what Club Brugge may need.”
At Ghent, a vacuum remains: who should the Buffaloes look for? “That may even be a more difficult story. Leko was exactly what Ghent needed. It often involved trial and error, but they were still on the right track. There was enormous satisfaction with how Leko had given the club a kind of metamorphosis.”
“Just get started, hey. I can’t immediately name a name as his successor. It has to be someone who brings about the same as Ivan Leko, so I can imagine that they have now been knocked out at AA Gent and that they are slightly indignant.”
