Saturday is exactly twenty years after September 11, 2001, the day of the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York. That day is deeply etched in Arnold Bruggink’s memory. The former attacker was forced to play a Champions League match on 9/11 with PSV visiting Nantes. Twenty years later Bruggink looks at the NOS back on that day, including the remarkable reaction to the attacks of his then teammate Mateja Kezman.
“There are two moments in my football career that I never wanted to experience,” Bruggink says. “The day I walked across the Hanover field with Robert Enke’s coffin on my shoulder. And the Champions League match against Nantes, on September 11, 2001.” Exactly twenty years ago, the United States was hit by a series of attacks involving passenger planes. The Twin Towers were pierced and the Pentagon was also hit by a plane. A fourth plane crashed near Pittsburgh. The terror attacks killed about 3,000 people and injured twice that number.
Bruggink was called on September 11, 2001 by André Ooijer, who had not traveled to Nantes with PSV due to an injury. “Within a minute we were all looking at those images from America. And you immediately noticed that it did something to the players. Dejected, numb, whatever you want to call it.” Nevertheless, the match continued into the evening. “Our trainer Eric Gerets asked us all one by one if we wanted to play. Everyone said ‘yes’. I regretted that for a long time. Every year I am reminded once of that day in 2001. It is so” One day you most want to forget. But I remember it all, as if it were yesterday.”
Within the PSV player group, two camps arose after the attacks on 9/11. There was a story that Kezman would have had a scuffle with Ronald Waterreus, but that is not true according to Bruggink. “And the story that Kezman went down the hall dancing is not true,” said Bruggink. “But it’s true that some players were less excited than others. I remember that guys like Kezman, Yuriy Nikiforov and Giorgi Gakhokidze were just laughing during the sports meal. They actually showed normal behavior, but at our table there was a grave atmosphere. . And that clashed, yes.”
Bruggink explains how that happened. “Later I sometimes spoke with Kezman about that day. He explained how he had experienced it. How, as a young football player from Partizan Belgrade, he had to hide from the American bombers, who wanted to settle the war in Kosovo by bombing the Serbian capital. “A taste of his own medicine, that’s how it felt to him. I’m not like that, but I could understand him.”
Harry van Raaij, the then chairman of PSV, made an effort that evening to cancel the match against Nantes. “Until just before the game, Mr. Van Raaij continued to discuss with the officials,” Bruggink said. “He kept walking in and out of the dressing room, accosting all the officials he saw. But it was impossible. They threatened to kick PSV out of the Champions League if we refused.” In the end, PSV lost the group match in the Champions League 4-1. “I remember that we were approached at the bus by a few supporters,” says Bruggink. “They were complaining that it was a weak gang. ‘Let’s be serious,’ we said. ‘Didn’t you get anything then?'”