The Sunday Times February 13, 2022 15
comfortable on the pitch.” However,
as he has played more, and been
given more responsibility under
Gerrard, “I feel more comfortable, I
feel I can trust more in everyone and
they can trust in me.
“I think that’s the reason why I had
a good [month], that I enjoy my
football a lot again.”
At Norwich, for whom he created
more chances for team-mates in one
month (December 2019) than any
player in Premier League history,
Buendía developed a telepathic
understanding with Timo Pukki. “We
played together for three years and
by the last year we didn’t need to see
the other one’s position. I knew,
when I got the ball, he was running.
“When I arrived here I spoke a lot
with Ollie Watkins, and then with
Danny Ings when he came in, to get
to know each other’s games. I think
in every game we’re getting more
confident.”
His show of temper was a turning
point. “I really got, in that moment,
the frustration of trying to be the
best. I think that was a moment that
changed my mindset,” he says, “after
it, I think I have just been growing up
and getting better in every way.”
He admits reflecting on his pique
and saying to himself “enough is
enough”. “I want to help the team
and show everyone the club made a
good decision with myself, to repay
the confidence they showed in me.
“I watched my games back and
didn’t enjoy how I had played before.ON TV TODAY
Newcastle United v Aston Villa
Sky Sports Main, Kick-off 2pma Champions League with [Bayern]
Munich. I really watch him a lot. He’s
quite similar, we enjoy football in the
same way.”
A bruised hip means a late call on
whether Buendía plays away to
Newcastle United, but he’s desperate
to continue to “give back the love the
Villa fans gave me”. Their backing
during his early-season travails was
“amazing... another excuse to play
my best.”
His partner, Claudia, and their
young sons, Thiago and Giovanni,
have settled in Sutton Coldfield,
helped by Emi Martínez, who lives
five minutes away. “We’ve found a
beautiful family in Emi Martínez’s
family,” Buendía says. “He helped a
lot and his missus helped my missus.
We have kids the same age — they can
play together, go to school together,
play football together. Everything is
going well for us to be happy here.”So that was a moment [of change]
and now I can show people what I’m
capable of doing.”
Gerrard, who thinks Buendía has a
similar nature to Javier Mascherano,
spoke approvingly of Buendía’s
tendency to erupt when beaten in
training. “A tenacious little
character,” Gerrard purred last week.
Buendía says of his boss: “He
helped me a lot. From the first
moment we had a chat and he spoke
with me about his philosophy and
style and it’s the same style I enjoy.
“His mentality is as a winner and
this is important. When he gives a
message, I think every player believes
in his words. There’s a lot of ambition
from him and the club.”
When Gerrard recruited Coutinho
on loan from Barcelona, many
viewed it as bad news for Buendía,
believing that Villa could not risk
deploying two No 10s. A very British
view? “Yes,” Buendía says, smiling.
“We’ve shown we can play together.
We’re both South Americans and he
speaks Spanish. From the first
moment we had a good connection
and good relationship. He’s a special
player and I can learn a lot from him.
“I remember his time at Liverpool
— he was one of the best in the world
— and he went to Barcelona and woneign owned and several are linked to
teams abroad. Beerschot share own-
ership with Sheffield United, Cercle
Brugge with Monaco, KV Oostende
with Barnsley, Kortrijk with Cardiff
City, Seraing with Metz, Lommel with
Manchester City and OH Leuven with
Leicester.
Union were in First Division B (the
second tier) when Bloom and Muzio
arrived and the three years it took for
promotion was bang on what they
predicted. This season’s success is
unexpected, though they are benefit-
ting from an unforeseen fair financial
wind: Covid has dented the revenue
of powerhouses such as Anderlecht,
Club Brugge, Gent and Genk. “This
season those teams have not been
able to invest, which has allowed us to
have a bigger budget relative to them,”
Muzio said.
Belgian football has been mired in
scandals, with the “Operation Zero”
inquiry looking at match fixing, finan-
cial fraud and illegal payments with
coaches, managers, referees, agents
and even journalists questioned by
investigators. Every established club
has been linked in some way and last
month it was announced that the judi-
cial authorities hope to bring charges
against 57 suspects.
Union sit outside all of this and as
Lagae says, “They are doing wonder-
ful things for Belgian football and cre-
ating a fairytale in a moment when the
news headlines are very dark.” The
Leicester of the low countries roll on.
Today, it’s Sint-Truiden at home in
First Division A. Tomorrow the Cham-
pions League?‘Burgess took an
unusual route into
football. A vegan
environmentalist
and Labour Party
member, he spoke
at a Keir Starmer
campaign meeting’
deco Stade Joseph Marien, which
holds 9,400 and is in central Brussels,
near the Eurostar terminal and sur-
rounded by cafés and bars. With
Covid restricting other gatherings,
young Belgians have taken advantage
of laxer rules around football and
“every home game is like a massive
open air festival with fans on the
streets for hours before kick off ”, says
Lagae.
“The sympathetic nature of the
support base, the positivity, the anti-
racism, the anti-fascism, the commu-
nity spirit is very much part of my own
ethos,” Muzio told The Belgian Foot-
ball Podcast. “I don’t have to think
what would the supporters like me to
do, I just have to think: how would I
like this to work?”
Bloom rarely attends games and
leaves the day-to-day business of
Union to Muzio, who is 37 and heads a
young team that runs the club.
O’Loughlin is 43 while the chief execu-
tive Philippe Bormans is 34. Bloom
and Muzio had exacting criteria when
they looked for a club to buy in
Europe. It had to be a convenient
commute from London and offer the
possibility of going on a journey and
winning.
Union, Belgium’s most successful
club before the Second World War but
outside the top flight for almost 50
years, fitted the bill and the Belgian
league was attractive for several rea-
sons. Unlike France, it lacked a mega-
rich contender and it was seen as
more consistent in quality than
Holland or Portugal, where the top
clubs are of a high standard but
there is a significant drop-off when it
comes to the rest.
Union already had a foreign owner
(the German, Jürgen Baatzsch) and so
being controlled from abroad would
not be a culture shock. Meanwhile
Belgium, with its lack of work permit
restrictions, offered carte blanche to
recruit wherever the data led – and
perhaps Brighton could benefit from a
sister club in a league with good con-
ditions for developing players.
Nine Belgian top-tier clubs and
nearly all its second tier clubs are for-him a likely candidate to settle
abroad. He lives 45 minutes from
Brussels and close to Union’s training
base in Antwerp, where he is taking
French classes at a university. And the
leftism is far from a prob-
lem. “Union were a
club of old, typical
Brussels, French-speaking males and then suddenly
something happened that was like a
bit of magic — the interest from Bloom
and Ruzio [who took over in 2018] and
arrival of a young, urban, leftish new
fan base that was attracted to the story
of Union,” Lagae says.
Union play in an iconic, if some-
what tumbledown, ground, the artTHE WAITING GAME
Years since last title win: Current top three* in Europe's 'big five' and Belgian leagues
*Top three going into this weekend; **current championsPremier League
Man City**
Liverpool
Chelsea0
2
52
Ligue 1
Paris Saint-Germain
Marseille
Nice12
630
Bundesliga
Bayern Munich**
Borussia Dortmund
Bayer Leverkusen10
11La Liga
Real Madrid
Sevilla
Real Betis2
76
870
Serie A
Inter Milan**
Napoli
AC Milan32
1187
Belgium First Division A
Union Saint-Gilloise
Antwerp
Club Bruges **65
0Burnley v Liverpool
Burnley will be without Matej
Vydra and Johann Berg
Gudmundsson. Sadio Mané, who
is one game away from his 250th
Premier League appearance, and
Jordan Henderson should return
to the Liverpool squad. Sean
Dyche’s side have won only once
in their past 23 league games.
6 Highlights BBC1, 10.30pm.Tottenham Hotspur v
Wolverhampton Wanderers
Spurs will again be missing
defenders Eric Dier and Japhet
Tanganga. Wolves hope to have
Joao Moutinho back, but Hwang
Hee-chan is doubtful. The visitors
have won two of their past three
away league games against
today’s opponents. Antonio
Conte, the Tottenham head
coach, is looking to avoid three
straight league defeats for the
first time since November 2009.
6 Highlights, BBC1, 10.30pmTODAY’S OTHER
TOP-FLIGHT GAMES
Wes Morgan celebrates a goal for
Leicester during their remarkable
title-winning season when the
so-called ’big six’ were vanquishedChristian Burgess,
second left, joins in
the celebrations after
a goal for Union
Saint-Gilloise