FC Emmen has been without a win for eight games and has slipped to twelfth place. Can Michaël Heylen, who has recovered from an injury, turn the tide for the Drenthe people?
There was again little to laugh about for FC Emmen players and staff last week. Where the talents of Jong PSV should have fallen victim to the resurrection of the Drenthe in the first division, coach Fred Grim and his men left the field with an embarrassing 3-0 defeat at De Herdgang.
There were very few bright spots to be seen in the camp of the Emmen residents. Or maybe one. Michaël Heylen took some playing minutes in Eindhoven for the first time in a long time. There were only seven of them and also in the unfamiliar role as a battering ram during rush hour, but still.
Since the central defender was injured in early December due to an inflammation in the pubic area near the groin, FC Emmen’s decline began. If there is a causal connection, the 30-year-old Belgian could now also be the key to solving the problems in Southeast Drenthe.
“If you say so…”
Heylen puts a modest smile on his face. “I don’t know if that is the case. If you say so…’, it sounds with a nice Flemish accent. “If you look purely at the results and the matches I played in, maybe yes, but of course I don’t like to say that about myself.”
Heylen was injured during the match that FC Emmen played against Willem II on December 1. Although that match resulted in a 3-0 defeat, the Drenthe team recorded a nice series of thirteen games in which they only lost to ADO Den Haag. FC Emmen competed for the top places with Heylen as a permanent fixture in the ranks.
Back to the injury. It was a difficult ailment in a difficult place. “It made it very difficult for me to sprint and that I could hardly turn and turn. It was barely bearable”, Heylen reflects. A possible solution was an injection with a painkiller, but that also entailed the risk that more damage would be caused without the Belgian realizing it. Ultimately, natural healing was chosen with a lot of rest. “But that took longer than expected,” the defender laments.
‘That got into people’s heads’
He has now put the misery behind him and Heylen, who is known as a pure team player, is ready to help his teammates. Where exactly the demise of FC Emmen came from is also a mystery to him. “That is the answer we are all looking for. Even against a promising team like Jong PSV, we didn’t have much to say and we were sometimes lost. I think part of it is frustration that bothers us, towards ourselves and others. It’s mental. Before the winter break, we often suddenly found it difficult in the final phase and lost games in the last ten minutes. I think this has gotten into people’s heads. The fear of: it’s not going to happen again.”
The team showed that FC Emmen can play football well in early January in the first half against NAC Breda. “But then suddenly a goal comes out of nowhere, a beautiful long shot, and then you see something come over the team: what now? It results in a mental slap, which suddenly causes us to no longer keep the agreements. Then people suddenly start doing other things, which means you still lose that match. I have been in football for quite a long time, so I know that it is very difficult to get out of this hole. You need a few mentally strong men who can lead the team. That will have to come from the older players; You can’t expect that from the young guys.”
Too many bad luck moments
FC Emmen has men who know the ropes. Think of Mike te Wierik, Maikel Kieftenbeld, Piotr Parzyszek and Heylen himself is one of them. “I certainly try to help during training by coaching the boys. It’s little things that might bring about change. It’s not the group’s fault. We have good players and we talk to each other a lot, but that is not going to solve the problem. Maybe we just need a little more luck. We’ve had quite a few bad moments. Balls on the post and against the crossbar. If things go well for a while, you may be able to achieve a good run and you will soon be there again and compete for the play-off places again. But the longer it goes away, the harder it becomes. There aren’t that many competitions anymore.”
And then FC Emmen also has a tough program awaiting them in the coming week, with Roda JC away to start, then Cambuur and Willem II at home and then VVV-Venlo away. “It is of the utmost importance that we stay on the same page and that we all travel to Kerkrade on Friday with the same thoughts. Fortunately, the atmosphere among the players is still good, despite the fact that we are so low. We also know that we have the qualities. The leaders in the group must now stand up and show the team the way. It is a difficult task, but we have to get through this together.”