Kenneth Perez is very annoyed by Noa Lang. The analyst tells Monday evening during football talk on ESPN that the attacking midfielder of Club Brugge made six throw-away gestures to teammates in the space of five minutes at the end of the game with Royal Antwerp (1-1). Perez thinks it’s ‘not possible’ and hopes that Lang will be called to order soon.
“I was switching gears on Sunday, and then I ended up in the last five minutes of Royal Antwerp against Club Brugge”, Perez begins. “Noa Lang plays at Club Brugge. I saw Noa Lang make six (!) throw-away gestures to his fellow players in those five minutes. That’s about what you shouldn’t do to fellow players. to express to your fellow players. In professional football you rarely see people making a gesture of: you can’t do anything about it. Six times in five minutes!”
“Then of course my hope is that someone in the staff or the players will notice that and make it clear to him that this is not the intention and say: ‘We are not served by this. Stop it, because this really doesn’t look like it. .’ I don’t think it was said to him very often in his career,” said Perez, who admits that he was once corrected by Co Adriaanse during the period he played at AZ after a similar situation. “He said: “Kenneth, if I see this again, you’ll be substituted right away.” And that’s how you should do it as a trainer, you just shouldn’t accept this,” concludes Perez.
The also present Valentijn Driessen responds to the comments of his colleague and points out that Lang has indeed been corrected in the past because of unsportsmanlike behaviour. “Erik ten Hag told him after Lang acted strangely to Dusan Tadic in a cup match against Telstar. Then it was said to him. This is of course one of the problems Lang ran into at Ajax. Tadic is the big leader there and he won’t take it when this happens on the field. And he doesn’t take it when it happens in training or in the dining room. His behavior was an important point of criticism at Ajax, and I am not surprised that this is still the case,” said Driessen.