My most embarrassing football story
My most embarrassing football story
I was playing for Willem 2 in the reserves team when a young, 17 year old Moussa Dembele joined our club whom I knew from when I was playing at the Ajax academy. Ajax back then partnered up with the Belgium side Germinaal Beerschot Antwerpen and every other week talented players from there would partake in a trial training or a test match with us alongside Jan Vertonghen, Thomas Vermaelen, Stanley Aborah and Tom de Mul, Moussa trained and played matches in my team.
He showed tremendous fitness and talent so we all thought he would join the academy like the others before him, for some reason he didn’t.
Either Ajax wasn’t decisive enough or maybe Moussa didn’t fancy the move. He was still only 14/15 years old at the time so maybe it was a bit too soon for him. I honestly don’t know the real reason behind it..
Anyway a few years later I left the Ajax academy and was playing for Willem 2 and they signed Moussa to the club in the summer of 2005. Somehow I missed the announcement of his transfer. So I was happily surprised when I bumped into him in the hallway of the locker rooms. I remember the exact spot, it was just in front of the reserves team locker room.
To give you a bit context, the locker room of the reserves is the worst locker room in any professional football organization. Every football player will agree with me on this one. I think it’s because physically you are so close but statistically still miles away, cause very few actually make that leap.
Every morning you walk past the 1st team’s locker room and every morning you think I want to be there. They have the hot tub, they have the sauna, a TV, it’s a lot bigger, it’s just 10 times better than the shitty little reserves one.
At Willem 2 we even had a special ceremony. The moment you were promoted to the first team, the manager gave you a pair of scissors for you to cut a ribbon and everybody would applaud, sing and cheer to you when you entered the big boys locker room.
Anyway back to my conversation with Moussa. After chatting for a while I said: “training is about to start so let’s gear up, cause you don’t want to be late on your first day” As we walked to our locker room I pulled Moussa’s arm as I saw he was about to enter the first team’s locker room.
“Mate that’s not your locker room” I said, he looked at me, smiled and said “Mate it is not your locker you mean”. He pulled his arm back and walked into the first team’s locker room. He wasn’t arrogant about it, he actually felt a bit sorry for me because he knew I was trying to save him from embarrassment, but the reality was because of my poor assumptions I was the one that ended up feeling embarrassed. He obviously progressed his career and turned into a premier league and Belgium star, every time I see him on tv I can’t help to smile cause I think about that moment. It taught me an important lesson. NEVER assume anything.
