Match Report
First half:
Conditions appeared to be just about right as a tone-setter for Belgium’s final qualification match ahead of ‘Italia novanta’. They took to the pitch already knowing that Czechoslovakia had comprehensively beaten the Swiss in the earlier kick-off, and so realized that they needed to win in order to make sure that the top spot was their’s to keep. However, Czechoslovakia were equal not just on points but also on goal difference, so the necessary clear margin win was expected from the hosts.
What had manager Walter Meeuws learnt from the somewhat disappointing 2-2 draw in Switzerland earlier in the month? Surely that he should not set his team up with a midfield diamond? No. Forget that. The home side came out sporting the same centre pitch shape which had brought that dull and flat first half in Basle, however with some changes in personnel. Rather than Vervoort to the left there was Danny Boffin, whilst Scifo came into Degryse’s role at the head of the diamond. Degryse himself had been moved into attack where he would partner the captain. And wasn’t there just something a tad heavy about Ceulemans? Did he look as fit as he should?
The visitors had lost 3-0 at home to Portugal on the same evening as the Belgians’ draw in Switzerland, and manager Philipp had kept faith with the 3-5-2 which he had introduced there. Up until the Portugal match, the former national team captain with 55 caps to his name, had been a 4-4-2 man. With reliable defender Petry sidelined, Carlo Weis was Philipp’s natural choice for the libero role. The manager would also be pleased to have both of Guy Hellers and Robby Langers available to him. That had not always been the case so far in the qualification.
It is the visitors who kick the game into action through their forward duo of Malget and Langers.
Luxembourg do not start the match like a team bereft of confidence from six straight defeats. They knock the ball between themselves and even keep possession inside the Belgian half. In central midfield man Guy Hellers they have a quality player who would be in or around the Belgian squad had he been born a few miles to the west. He is a player capable of holding on to the ball even in rough seas, and it is also interesting to see how his calmness affects those immediately around him. Jeff Saibene had only been a bit part player for Luxembourg so far during the qualification until he was given a starting berth at home to Portugal. He too tries to impose himself on the game early on; he succeeds by keeping things simple. It is a decent recipe for installing confidence into the team when your passes reach their destination and you are able to keep possession of the ball. There does not appear to be a whole lot of aggression in the Belgian midfield early on. Indeed, the speedy and mobile Robby Langers up front decides to let his opportunism take Michel Preud’homme by surprise: From the edge of the penalty area he swings his boot and makes the ‘keeper work. The Mechelen stopper, ‘Player of the year’ twice in Belgian football in the last three years, has to palm the ball away. The move and strike carried the hallmarks of Langers’ typical enthusiasm, but any goalkeeper of international stature would have made the save. It was more about the timing and angle of the shot, which also left Langers’ marker Nico Broeckaert stunned.
Belgium are an impressive side when they can get their central line going. They were without influental libero Demol through suspension, but against opposition such as Luxembourg that should not have been a major problem. There were capable replacements available to Meeuws, who had given Demol’s role to Clijsters, the experienced Mechelen defender. Clijsters was accompanied by Antwerp’s Broeckaert in the centre of the Belgian defence, the latter a 28 year old who had made his debut in the 3-0 friendly win against Denmark in August. This was his first international of significance, and he did seem a tad nervous to begin with. Luxembourg had realized that in denying the Belgian central line space and time, they would be able to make the home side look pedestrian. Their forwards chased and harried Clijsters and defensive midfielder Van der Elst, who likes to conduct play from the centre circle, and Birsens kept a watchful eye on Scifo. Without neither Van der Elst nor Scifo to distribute, the home team seemed a bit lost for ideas. And it had seemed more of a fluke how they came close when Degryse on four minutes put a cross in from the right and found Ceulemans’ head on the opposite edge of the six yard box. His header via the ground was punched over by van Rijswijck, but it proved to be a false dawn.
A prefered move of the Belgians is to aim passes from central midfield out towards the right hand side for either forward to stretch the opposition’s defence. Van der Elst is often looking for this option, and with Ceulemans rather stationary and off the pace, it is predominantly Degryse who is his aim. Degryse, far from unfamiliar with a more right-sided attacking midfield role with the Red Devils, tries to take his marker, the unkempt Bossi, for little runs out into this territory. And whenever they succeed, there’s grounds for concern among the visiting defenders. However, Van der Elst can not liberate himself often enough to hit these angled passes out towards the right. In cutting off this major source of Belgian creativity, the visitors have come a long way in keeping the normally so speedy hosts quiet.
René Scheuer is a trusted member of the Luxembourg back line. He had so far only missed two of their seven qualifiers, but he did not have the best memories from his tussles with Belgium captain Ceulemans last time out. ‘Big Jan’ had often tormented Scheuer in the air, and the home side’s number 11 had been on song that night. Here, however, he is kept well in tow by the rugged Differdange man, and it was perhaps appropriate to ask the daring question of what Ceulemans actually brought to the team on his current form. He had been slow against the Swiss in their last outing, and he did not at all look any sharper here. Jan Ceulemans, though, was an icon in Belgian football, and it would take a bold manager to leave him on the bench.
Attacking with pace along both flanks is another typical Belgian weapon. This time around they had Grün on the right to assist the normally so eager Emmers, whilst on the left there was, as usual, attack-minded Mechelen left-back Versavel, with Boffin just ahead of him. The latter, however, often orientated himself towards more central areas, and again Luxembourg had done their home work, as they shut Versavel out through the use of right-sided stalwart Girres, whilst Grof was doing a similar job opposite on Emmers. The latter had not been at the top of his game against the Swiss, and again he seemed a bit out of sorts. As it were, Grün would more often than Emmers make it to the right hand byline.
With just over nine minutes gone, there’s another bit of sloppiness on Belgian part, when they concede possession to the visitors just outside the penalty area. The alert Langers nicks the ball off Broeckaert and advances on Clijsters, but he can not get proper control of the ball and scuffs his shot wide to the left of Preud’homme’s goal. Had he elected to take another touch, he could have worked himself into a better angle, and his left-foot shot could have spelled trouble. Already, the crowd are beginning to sound a few boos, something which appears unreasonable, judging by the fact that less than ten minutes of the match have passed by.
The Heysel is relatively sparsely populated for the occasion, but those who have turned up decide to vent their increasing frustration when Versavel midway through the first half finishes a Belgian move by firing a right-foot (!) shot from 20 yards way over and wide of van Rijswijck’s goal. The Belgians can not find any pace or rhythm, and the visitors are more than pleased to keep the hosts at bay rather than try and attack themselves. Their rigid ways of denying the home team openings comes at a cost: When in possession, neither flank player is able to contribute much inside the opposition’s half as they have been working extremely hard off the ball. So even though not a lot is expected from them, whatever happens inside the Belgian half is typically results of individual craftsmanship or moves involving two or, at most, three players. Malget seems to be a good partner for Langers, as his physical presence takes a bit of attention away from the Nice man.
They are not mean, Luxembourg, but they do at times stretch the imagination of fair play right onto its borders. Scheuer is seen bringing Ceulemans down from behind, and the home captain is not interested in the defender’s attempted handshake to help him back onto his feet, whereas Birsens has a rather mean looking challenge on Scifo which also sees the home player look displeased. With just over 25 minutes gone, the game all pedestrian and without a lot of incidents, Emmers suddenly decides to stretch his feet, advancing diagonally towards the centre from the halfway line. He has Hellers tracking his run, and it seems more an act of misfortune than something intentional when Emmers goes to the ground clutching his left thigh after Hellers had brought him down from behind. The stylish Hellers had committed a rather untypical challenge, and he had his name taken by the referee as a result.
Approaching the half hour mark, the crowd have begun to turn against their own. There’s a few passes strung together among the visitors, most of them inside their own half, and the spectators ironically cheer Luxembourg on to make it known to the Red Devils that this is not what they have come to see. A player like Scifo, who has not had it all his way throughout the qualification, at times looks carefree, and it beggars belief how this team could dish out such performances as had been seen against Czechoslovakia and Portugal. Against what is possibly the worst national team in Europe, Belgium are unable to pose any kind of threat towards the visiting goal. Luxembourg ‘keeper van Rijswijck, an electrician when he does not wear the national team jersey, could have fitted a large number of electrical wires by the time he next touches the ball, which is when he places the ball on the six yard line for a goal kick after Versavel’s hit a left-foot shot well wide from 25 yards.
The two managers are acting distinctly differently on the touchline: Walter Meeuws just sits quietly in the home side’s dug-out, whilst Paul Philipp is always on his feet shouting instructions to his players, and indeed making himself known to the officials as he demonstrates against every decision given in his team’s disfavour.
Ten minutes from half time Girres delievers a fine corner from the right, and Birsens makes a good jump to get up above Ceulemans. Unfortunately for the visitors, he can not get his attempt on goal; it goes well over. However, it is another warning sign for the home team, if they needed one. Time to wake up from their sleep. Another three minutes into the future, though, it is Langers who goes on a mazy run which sees him advance past Clijsters and Van der Elst on the halfway line. As he darts towards Preud’homme’s goal, he has Hellers to his left, but he gets too excited and tries to foil the recovering Clijsters a second time, only to see the defender take the ball off him and play it back to the ‘keeper. Hellers is displeased with his team mate, who had had a similar kind of counter-attacking opportunity right before half time in the home leg against the Belgians. In the wake, there’s loud boos reverberating around the stadium. It all just plays into the favour of the visitors, who are brimming with confidence as the game approaches half time.
Another Luxembourg break four minutes from the end of the first period sees Langers take the ball towards the left side of the home side’s penalty area. Before he can get there, though, Clijsters has taken matters into his own hands, or his feet, and brought the quick striker down. Yellow card. Langers accepts the libero’s handshake. Weis plays the resulting free-kick, 25 yards from goal, inside for Hellers to have a go, but the midfielder’s shot is rushed and wayward.
Before the solid Icelandic referee signals an end to the half, Van der Elst had found Degryse inside the penalty area, and the forward seemed to have a rare bit of space. He needed to make a 180 degrees turn to fire at goal, though, and this gave Scheuer the necessary amount of time to get in front and block the Anderlecht forward’s effort. The teams walk off for their half-time tea to a chorus of boos, obviously directed at the home side.
Second half:
Neither manager has rung the changes at half time, but surely Meeuws has had the hair dryer out. They had been so slow and quite unrecognizeable in the opening 45 minutes, and the least one could expect was a bit of urgency. Degryse and Ceulemans brought the match back into action, and it did seem as if they were eager to up the ante, with both Versavel and Scifo seen early on running when retrieving the ball for set-pieces. However, it is another false dawn, and the game soon slows down into the same pattern that had been evident for much of the first half. Belgium just could not be bothered. Where was the desire to win? They were risking that they finish second in a group which they had lead almost from the outset, although it would take a Czechoslovakia win in Portugal, far from an easy task.
In possession, Belgium at the start of the second half appeared to want Emmers in a more central role, so he would be seen closer to Scifo in an attempt to bring back the midfielder that so often in the past had made havoc in opposing defences through his strong runs off the ball. Some eight minutes into the half, Versavel tries to play Emmers through the centre, but he takes a poor touch, unsurprisingly in the circumstances, and the ball richochets off his knee and is an easy claim for van Rijswijck.
16 uneventful minutes into the second half, Belgium are passing the ball around inside the visitors’ half without much conviction, and to an increasing chorus of boos. There is almost an opening, though, when Boffin tries to tread Ceulemans through the middle, as the low ball in evades the sliding Scheuer, but the home captain can’t make a connection, and van Rijswijck can again pick the ball up and slow things down. The Luxembourg game plan of frustrating their hosts is working to perfection. Surely, Meeuws will need to produce some tricks from up his sleeve, if he’s got any?
As some of the home players are beginning to have little arguments between themselves, notably Versavel and Scifo after the latter had played a poor pass in the direction of the left-back, the diminutive Groff decides to release the handbreak and advance across the halfway line. He finds Langers with his back to the goal around 30 yards out, but the forward makes an impressive turn and advances a few feet further before he releases his strike. It goes well over, but again it is the visitors who are able to produce an attempt. That is a lot more than the home side have been able to create so far in the second half. Again, the crowd applaude the visitors in what is just as much a taunt towards their own.
The game has so little pace about it that it is a relief when Degryse can finally accelerate down the right hand side, having freed himself away from his marker Bossi around the 65 minute mark. Instead he is challenged near the touchline by Hellers, who also goes through a fair amount of defensive work here. He does run a fine line, does Hellers, after his first half booking, but he avoids any further retribution from the referee than a free-kick against. As Degryse himself swings it into the box, he finds the head of the almost absent-minded Ceulemans, whose header is tame and an easy catch for van Rijswijck. This promptly releases a chorus from the crowd, who want to see Luc Nilis introduced. Prior to this match, the Anderlecht forward had only made two starts and two substitute appearances from seven qualifying matches, but he had been on the scoresheet for his club side at the weekend during a 3-0 win against Kortrijk.
Luxembourg become the first to make a change: Swiss based midfielder Saibene, who has done well in the centre of the park, but who appeared to have grown tired, and he had also recently taken a knock after a challenge with Versavel, came off to make space for the combative Gérard Jeitz. The Union Luxembourg midfielder had started their five first qualifiers, but would make a second straight substitute appearance tonight. Jeitz would just slot right into the position left vacant by Saibene. Immediately after, Belgium make both their substitutions, when Nico Claesen comes on for Boffin, before Luc Nilis replaces Emmers. In taking two midfielders off for two strikers, the crowd finally sound an opinion of encouragement for the home side, and perhaps also just as much a homeage in favour of crowd favourite Nilis. Next up is a Weis strike straight at Preud’homme from a free-kick 26 yards out. The Luxembourg libero, a carpenter by trade, has all night hammered discipline into his team mates from his role at the heart of their defence.
With both Nilis and Claesen on, the latter making his first appearance of the qualifiers, Belgium appear very much with an attacking formation. This is Meeuws’ way of letting the surroundings know he’s far from pleased at the game still being scoreless, and, perhaps almost as importantly, he’s displeased with the level of performance from his players. Both substitutes head for strikers’ roles, with Ceulemans dropping slightly deeper, just behind the two. Degryse will go into a wide right position, whilst Van der Elst and Scifo are left to run the midfield. Playing against semi-professionals, Belgium will have been expecting the visitors’ fitness levels to be inferior to their own, but the game had been played at a fairly slow pace throughout, so Luxembourg would most likely cope for the remaining quarter of an hour. Alarmingly, though, Scheuer goes down after a challenge with Ceulemans and is in need of treatment, and so if they need to make their final substitution with a certain amount of time left on the clock, there is precious little to go on at the death in case of emergency. Scheuer will limp around for a few minutes before finally succumbing to the knock, and he is replaced by Théo Scholten, a player usually operating wide left in midfield. This final Luxembourg substitution sees a bit of a shuffle, with Birsens going back into Scheuer’s berth in central defence, as he’s probably seen as the player best equipped for dealing with Ceulemans in the air. In for Birsens in the holding midfield role comes Jeitz, which means Hellers switches from his original role of central left and into central right, with the latest addition Scholten coming into Hellers’ berth.
They cause a bit of confusion inside the visitors’ penalty area with the introduction of the two strikers, do the home side, but it seems more through the sheer volume of players that they have thrown into the mix rather than through exuberance. Degryse finds Nilis on the back post, but the substitute can’t control the ball before he’s being closed down by Birsens, and van Rijswijck beats his strike away for a left wing corner. From this set-piece there’s an opportunity from Grün, who flicks Nilis’ flag kick wide to the right of the Luxembourg goal. Next Meeuws instructs Versavel to go into a left wing role, and they appear gung-ho in a desperate attempt to find that elusive goal. And it pays off! After almost an entire match without properly testing van Rijswijck, it is the much taunted Scifo who plays an exquisite pass over the head of Birsens to find Versavel with space inside the area, and the Mechelen defender fires a diagonal shot under the ‘keeper. It is a lead which the home side hardly merit, even if they have upped their efforts after the substitutions. Surely that’s it; both points in the bank.
In their state of excitement having scored late on, Belgium seem to forget how to defend. They allow the visitors to break, and in a rare foray it is right-sided player Girres who forces a right wing corner off Broeckaert. His cross is headed away by Ceulemans, but only as far as to Scifo, who can’t make proper connection to get it further away from inside the box. Malget sees the hesitancy and steals in, and as he brings the ball across the area, he tries to ride lunges from Van der Elst and Ceulemans, but is brought down. Penalty, surely! No. Before the referee has even had time to contemplate any action, the ball escapes and spins into the path of the unmarked Hellers, who side-foots expertly beyond Preud’homme’s reach. Luxembourg, the footballing dwarfs, have a late, late leveller in Brussels! Preud’homme is livid! He can’t believe how his team mates had failed to clear the ball.
A stunned home side are unable to muster further efforts. While Meeuws sits in disbelief at the home side’s bench, his counterpart Philipp is up on his feet waiving his arms and desperately trying to tell the officials that time is up. The game continues for an additional three and a half minutes, as there had been a couple of players in need of treatment during the second half. It is just academic, though, as nothing more will happen, and the visitors’ players can embrace each other and jump around like crazy at the sound of the final whistle. They had gained the most unlikely of points.
Conclusion:
Belgium had been expected to gain a comfortable win, and this had most likely played into the minds of their players, as they never managed to exert prolongued spells of pressure against the lowly visitors. Luxembourg had done their home work, and they denied the hosts space, making sure to close down midfielders Van der Elst and Scifo so they couldn’t easily reach their attacking players. As the game turned into a frustrating event for the pedestrian home side, it did look like they had nicked an undeserved win late on through Versavel’s goal, but a minute from time the visitors would strike back through Belgium based midfielder Hellers. It was a sensational outcome, but nevertheless one that the visitors had deserved for their perseverance.
41′
