Ancient taka

A husband who is a poker wizard, a unique method of recruiting players and a prolific tip of "husband and wife".

Union Saint-Giulois, one of the oldest clubs in Belgium, returned to the top league after 48 years, finished 2021 at the top and dreams of the 12th and most sensational championship of all - 87 years after the previous win

Tomer Yitzhak

24/12/2021

Friday, December 24, 2021, 4:30 p.m.

• Share on Facebook

• Share on WhatsApp

• Share on Twitter

• Share on Email

• Share on general

• Comments

  Comments

Dante and Anzir were generally in the treatment room with the physiotherapist and masseur, when suddenly jumps and cries of excitement shook the dressing room of the Union Saint-Gilles. His friends watched the live broadcast of the Belgium national team squad announcement, and when national coach Roberto Martinez read his name, everyone celebrated and rejoiced for him. "I did not hear the broadcast, only the screams," said the excited striker. "It was just a normal day. I had no idea I would get a summons."

At the start of the season, after reading that Martinez was following him and seeing him as a candidate for the national team, the 23-year-old Anzir was even more skeptical: "Nice that he is keeping an eye on me, but it's too far away at the moment. Less than three months later, he had already entered the place of original origami and made his 1-1 debut against Wales.

Vanzier's story - a great talent in his teens who was released from Genk, suffered a serious injury and then did not find his place in Birscht and Mechelen either - is just one episode in the 2021 legend of Royal Union Saint-Gilles.

The old club, one of the founders of the first league in Belgium and the one that won 11 championships until 1935, returned in the summer after 48 years in the lower leagues and amazed the whole of Europe.

With a six-point lead at the top, the best offense and strongest defense - a first championship after 87 years is no longer a fantasy.

From the second league to the first ranked team in the world within a few months.

Dante and Anzir (Photo: GettyImages, Vincent Van Doornick / Isosport / MB Media)

Long before the reigns of Anderlecht and Club Brugge, Union Saint-Gilles was the number one club in Belgium. Four consecutive championships between 1904 and 1907 and a total of 11 to 1935, made the club from the city of Saint-Gilles near Brussels (less than 45,000 inhabitants) the most successful in Belgium before World War II, including seven members of the team that won Olympic gold in 1920. The team still played in the Fair Cities Cup (the early version of the UEFA Cup) and reached the semi-finals in 1959, but four years later was relegated for the first time and in 1980 was already relegated to the last league in the league hierarchy in Belgium.

For decades the club has shuffled in the zero water of Belgian football. Returning to the Second Division in 2015 was the first step of reaching out from the grave and three years later, in May 2018, came the moment of resurrection. Tony Bloom, the owner of Brighton and a fine poker player, decided to gamble on the forgotten luxury club along with his partner Alex Musio, with the aim of bringing San Giulois - still the third most decorated club in Belgium - to the forefront. And unlike other places, they immediately made it clear that this would not happen through indiscriminate fundraising.

"We did not buy a club in France, Italy or Spain, simply because these leagues require a huge investment to compete for first places," explained Musio. "In Belgium the story is different and we wanted a club with which it is possible to achieve." Unlike in the cases of the Red Bull Concern, the subsidiaries of Manchester City or Watford and Udinese of the Pozzo family, San Giulois at least at the moment is neither a subsidiary of Brighton nor a satellite club. Only four players have been loaned to the Belgian sister since 2018 - an average of one per season - when in the summer it was Japanese Kaoru Mitoma.

In general, San Giulois did not spend a single cent after immigration.

In the summer it set a budget of 16 million euros (the third lowest in the senior league) and even in the second league did not have the highest budget.

Bloom's financial investment in Musio is mainly related to the new training complex built in Leer, 30 km north of Brussels, where the issue of sustainability and ecology is one of the motifs we are trying to promote. " From other countries, and we need to change that, "said Musio." We are developing a business model based on sustainability, including from an environmental point of view, with the aim of becoming the greenest football club in the EU. "

Another successful bet of his.

Tony Bloom in Brighton's league promotion (Photo: GettyImages)

Bloom and his museum had hoped to get the Premier League ticket in one season, but failed in 2018/19 and in the summer decided to entrust the sporting management to Chris Oloclin, who previously served as assistant coach (and temporary coach) at St. Troiden, Charlton and Kortrijk. "On my first morning at the club I met with the coach, and in the evening he knocked on my door and said he was going to coach Amien in France," the 43-year-old Northern Irishman told Sky Sports about his acquaintance with Slovenian Luka Elsner, now a standard Liege coach. "That was my reception. I thought I would focus on purchasing and building infrastructure, and I found myself looking for a new coach and had to transfer the training myself in the meantime because the whole team left of course with him."

The Danish-Spanish Thomas Christensen was appointed and the team ran for the top spot, but the Corona disrupted the plans and again the coveted ticket was not obtained. In the summer of 2020, the pot for the lid has already been found: Felice Matsu. The coach of Italian descent, a son of immigrants from Calabria who was identified with Charleroi where he was born and after the success received the champion Genk the champion, saw the project in San Gilles as an excellent opportunity for career rehabilitation. The offer was a one-season contract with an option to extend only in case of promotion. He did it big time.

San Giulois ran over the second division last season and qualified with an 18-point advantage over the newcomer Sera, and in the summer retained most of the staff.

The recruitment of players continued to be unique, according to the "value system" outlined by the sports director.

"We are not looking for angels, but diverse characters: the quiet, the noisy, the joker," Oluklin explained.

"It's important to have dynamics. We adapt the players to our values, using them to connect everyone. Everyone came from different backgrounds, with different personalities and aspirations, and they all work together for a common goal. The current success is a result of investing in the first season. We need to build the club. "

The most prolific duo in Europe after Lewandowski and Gnabri.

Denise Ondab with Dante and Anzir (Photo: GettyImages, Jeroen Meuwsen / BSR Agency)

The best example of this is in attack. In Mazu's 3-5-2, the whole stage is given to the pair of strikers who also starred in the second division: Vanzir and Deniz Ondab. The first is the quiet, the second the joker. Both are under 1.80 meters and are not technically brilliant, but deadly in front of the goal and display a fantastic collaboration. The 23-year-old Belgian has already received the recognition, as mentioned with the summons to the team following 11 league goals and 7 league assists this season joining the 19 he scored last season, and alongside the German of 25-year-old Kurdish descent who contributed 17 goals in the promotion season and now stands at 16 -9 assists in the league.

When he was 14, Ondab heard from Werder Bremen that he had no future in football because he was too small. He did not give up on the dream and at the age of 17 left home to play in Hablaza from the fourth division for 150 euros a month. To supplement income, he left the factory at 4 a.m. and worked eight hours on the laser machine, before continuing training. He moved to the Braunschweig reserve and then to Lampen from the third division, until Oluklin persuaded him a year and a half ago to reach the second division in Belgium. Last month he scored a first four in his career and did not believe: "Even in the boys I did not do it. I wanted to leave the last goal for Dante, but I accidentally touched the ball with my nose ... I have a long nose. The coach always laughs and says that if one of us was a woman, we probably would We are getting married. There is really great chemistry between us. "

Apart from the two pioneers and the fact that it has a multinational squad (players from 16 different countries), San Giulois has restored young talents who have disappeared from the landscape in Belgium.

Reason Van der Hayden was a promising left-back at Anderlecht's academy and Senna Leinen was a leading midfielder in Bruges' youth.

Oluklin located them both in the second division in the Netherlands.

"These are two nice stories about players who were considered promises and suddenly disappeared," the sporting director said.

"One of the values ​​we sanctify is courage, and one example of courage is the ability to overcome adversity. There are quite a few periods like this in football, and these two knew how to get out of them."

Hopefully the stars will not run away from him in January.

Felice Matsu (Photo: GettyImages, Vincent Van Doornick / Isosport / MB Media)

Now, after shaking up Belgian football, thrilling the small town that delivers magical experiences at the Stade Joseph Marian which has been declared a heritage site in the country and received headlines across Europe, the anonymous names of San Giulois have become hot cucumbers. The team showed character with a comeback (for the second time this season) from a 2-0 deficit to a 2: 3 home win over Circle Bruges in the 91st minute, thus opening a six-point gap at the top and ensuring that it would finish 2021 at the top of the table anyway. But the fear is that Sunday's encounter with Genk (19:30, Sport 3) followed by a winter break will be the last of some of the stars before being snatched by bigger teams.

With the return from the break, the leader expects a series of games that includes Genk, Club Brugge, Anderlecht and Antwerp, and coach Matsu hopes that his stars will not leave.

"I think it's a good thing and right to finish a project you started, because only half a year ago we were all still in the second division," he clarified this week after winning the Coach of the Year award in Belgium.

"These players will be able to achieve a good future for themselves in a few months. Maybe even better. At first we just wanted to stay in the league, but now we can set the next goal and from January the goal is top 8. It will be something extraordinary. Beyond that? We are all allowed dream".

• sport

• magazine

Tags

• Union Saint-Gilles