3-3 on the lawn of Union Berlin: the evening of Union Saint-Gilloise was very lively in the Europa League during the round of 16 first leg this Thursday evening. And that’s not all…
The plane bringing back the Unionist players and the Belgian press could not take off at the end of the evening as planned. A de-icing of the aircraft was scheduled given the weather conditions and this lasted too long. The airport closed… two minutes before the plane was about to take off. Result: it is a return to the hotel and a departure on Friday finally (takeoff at 2 p.m.). Everyone was already on the plane when the announcement was made. The immediate reaction of the players: plug in their big speaker (with his DJ Loïc Lapoussin), turn on the music, sing and dance. The atmosphere therefore remained very friendly.
The preparation for the Unionists’ next match, Sunday at 6:30 p.m. against Racing Genk, leaders in the Pro League, is therefore a little disrupted. “In twenty years in football, this is the first time that this has happened to me. It is not ideal, but it is always possible to find solutions. We will try to train in Berlin on Friday morning before returning to Belgium. You have to be mentally strong to adapt to these kinds of circumstances. For me, it doesn’t change much for Sunday. It can perhaps look like a kind of team building. You saw the reaction when the players heard the news: they were great, they turned on the music and took the positive”said Karel Geraerts, coach of the Brussels club, to our microphone.