A
nderlecht, once
Belgium’s most
potent club, has
a new messiah- again. Vincent
Kompany, long-
time ex-captain
of Manchester City and ambassador
for an ebullient generation of Belgian
players, is the new head coach at
the Brussels-based club. In August,
Kompany unexpectedly announced his
retirement as a player following a career
that spanned17 years at the highest
level, marked equally by triumphs and
recurring injuries. He led City to their
first-ever Premier League title and won
a bronze medal with Belgium at the
2018 World Cup in Russia.
Kompany’s shock decision prompted
a debate on his place in the pantheon
of Belgian football gods, but his more
immediate concern will be to restore
Anderlecht to their former glory. For
too long, internal power struggles,
financial mismanagement and a woeful
transfer policy have blighted the club.
If this is all sounding very familiar,
that’s because it’s happened before.
Last summer, Anderlecht plotted to
rebuild and compete again in Belgium
and Europe. Embattled owner Marc
Coucke, sporting director Michael
Verschueren and technical director
Frank Arnesen landed a major coup:
Kompany returned to the Belgian
capital as a player-manager in a bid to
reconnect with the “Champagne football”
that French coach Pierre Sinibaldi
introduced in Brussels in the1960s.
The recruitment process carried on
with marquee signing Samir Nasri and
loanee Nacer Chadli from Monaco. In
England, Kompany benefited from the
stewardship of Pep Guardiola, the guru
of contemporary coaching with his
bold, attractive philosophy based on
pressing, positioning and passing. The
Belgian said training under Guardiola
was like attending university: you’d
learn new things every single day.
Kompany wanted to reintroduce his
boyhood club to a possession-based
game by copying Guardiola’s style – to
build up play from the back and recover
the ball as quickly as possible when out
of possession. The idea was presented
as a long-term “project.” He had few
detractors, even if the new blueprint
was hardly fool proof: did Kompany
have any coaching credentials? Would
the dual role not be too demanding?
Did the quality of Anderlecht’s squad
remotely match the tactical system
and playing style Kompany envisioned?
The Anderlecht hierarchy bypassed
a whole series of relevant questions.
Kompany, icon, was to carry the club
on his shoulders into a new era.
After all the brouhaha, he failed to
translate the theory into practice. Slow,
ineffective and impotent, Anderlecht
slumped to six points from 27, enduring
their worst domestic run since1922. Itwas a stark reality check for Kompany
and Anderlecht felt compelled to bring
in the experienced Frank Vercauteren as
his assistant to steady the ship. Arnesen,
best known for his role as sporting
director at both Tottenham Hotspur and
Chelsea, exited the club, presaging a
tumultuous second half of the season
with endless boardroom shuffles.
Karel Van Eetvelt, former chairman
of the Belgian Union of Independent
Entrepreneurs, became the club’s CEO,
and ex-journalist turned businessman
Wouter Vandenhaute succeeded
Coucke as chairman – a significant step
back for the club’s owner. In 2017, he
had acquired Anderlecht after a bidding
war against Vandenhaute. The
boardroom restructuring, with Kompany
becoming a shareholder as well, was
dressed up as a new start, but reflected
the malaise at a club burdened by
debts. In 2018-19, Anderlecht registered
a mammoth loss of€27 million.
On the field, the coaching of
Vercauteren with his penchant for
organisation and discipline yielded
a respectable eighth-place finish.Send off...Kompany’s
last game as a player
was a 7-0 win over
Zulte-WaregemKompany wanted to reintroduce his
boyhood club to a possession-based
game by copying Guardiola’s styleVincent Kompany
Another new era begins under the ex-Belgium skipper
Headliners