yes, well being 1-0 up rather than 1-0 down in a game we were in control of and keeping the players heads up rather than them going through another Stoke was a critical part of why we lost in my opinion.
Yeah we Belgians know that feeling, it went down harsh into our own National history.
/National football trauma
2002 - World cup in Japan - Belgium VS Brazil
Fucking Pendergast i still want to icepick you in the g-spots
Long story short, We were robbed. Somewhere early in that match our current national manager Mark "Der Kampfschein" Wilmots (it means fighting pig) scores a beautifull header into the Brazilian nets. Oh joy going trough the whole of tiny Belgium (yeah we all saw it on the same tv set) for atleast a second because you wouldn't bear a lifelong grudge against Referee Pendergast if it wasn't for his cuntyness deciding that the goal should be disallowed for reasons tottaly not acceptable. (to Belgians)
And thats where we were robbed. Sure Brazil eventually trounced us with the likes of Ronaldinho, Ronaldo (the real one) ,Roberto Carlos, Rivaldo, cafu, Kaka and their servants. But if it hadn't been for the fact that we were robbed we would have been 1-0 ahead and IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A TOTALLY DIFFERENT MATCH. You would have seen, all them Brazilian Stars (fuck that was a scary ass team) would have tottally fallen for a psychological schock rendering all their magical abbilety's eventually ineffective. Ronaldo would have only been able to dribble away 4 of our defenders which would have left one of us to save us. Our goalposts would all start to attract Ronaldinho's or Roberto Carlos their longshots. Surely we knew that if any of them star Brazilian players would start to give a shit that they likely would have been able to finish it in a few minutes (which was btw what kinda happened) but you know the psychological inpact of falling 1-0 behind is of such a girgantium nature as to render many practicly impotent. So Pendergast, know that the day you come to belgian is the one you accidently trip and fall with youre back on a knife logicly winding down the Schede river.
national football trauma/
And i know, not nessecarily that relevant a comarison, but the national trauma is real and i didn't mind throwing my heart out here