Yes.
Thomas Vermaelen
, 35 years old and after spending recent times in the elephant cemetery in Japan, still claims spotlights.
And not because he was lying on a stretcher, but because he was still in Belgium.
A quarter of an hour from the end, and with Finland yearning to start the tie that gave them qualification, Vermaelen caught a corner.
And goalkeeper
Hradecy
, gaping, did not know where to put his hand after hitting the ball on the post.
Lukaku
sank the Nordics, who finished third in the group.
Although with few qualifying options, with a goal difference of -2.
[Narration and statistics]
One of the Finnish fans singing their country's anthem in the stands of the
Krestovski
Stadium
in St. Petersburg began to cry. What difference does it make that the game hadn't even started. The fact, far from simple, that Finland had reached the last day of its first European Championship, its first major tournament, with options already deserved a waterfall of tears. Football, unfortunately, does not depend only on emotions, but on knowing how to play. And the coach
Markku Kanerva
, who in his years as a player worked as an elementary school teacher, had a plan. Simple and perhaps the only possible: to fit in his eleven players in the last 30 meters. Dreaming of a tie to nothing because Denmark beat Russia. And trust that if the time for Pukki did not come, some eagle owl, the amulet of the Norse, would perch on the crossbar.
It helped the Finns that Belgium faced the match already classified and with the certainty that a single point would be enough to secure the first place.
This led to the night passing in slow motion, no matter how much Doku, more than a promise, quickened the pace every time someone dared to pass the ball to him.
Hradecky took a ball that was going to goal.
Toivio
,
Arajuuri
and
O'Shaughnessy
, the Finnish centrals, were gigantic.
Witsel
,
De Bruyne
and
Eden Hazard
tried
, the three in the starting eleven hoping to be important in the face of crosses. The sensations left by the Real Madrid footballer improved as the minutes passed. He was not a starter with his national team since November 19, 2019. And his last goal as an international was scored on the 16th of that same month. From that same year. An eternity for those who led Belgium to third place in the World Cup in Russia. He peeked out first to shudder. Hazard, in the twilight of the first act, fell in the area before the entrance of O'Shaughnessy. The referee said nothing and the striker put his hand on his left ankle, not the right one, the damn one. It was just a fright. Already in the second half, the Belgian captain demanded Hradecky to another great stop. Little else was heard of him.
Belgium pressed something else.
Lukaku was annulled 0-1 because of an offside foot.
But Vermaelen got up.
Hradecky discovered the misfortune.
And Lukaku, this time yes, cut off a good part of the Finnish dream.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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Eden Hazard
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Eurocup Minute 42:10: story of Eriksen's miracle in Copenhagen
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