The restless Belgium manager, tasked with defending talented but goal-shy stars like Romelu Lukaku and Kevin De Bruyne, as well as on-field hell-raisers Troissard and Tielemans, is getting some belated respect. Reason: Belgium’s comeback win against Senegal 3-2 is unlikely.
Garcia, the 62-year-old coach of the Red Devils (not a famous name), is upset about everything: his players are washed up, his players are old, his players argue and fight, his players like Lukaku don’t play when needed, his players waste their own talent and Belgium’s time. And he defends them like the diamonds of Antwerp. He scribbles notes on random loose sheets of paper, sometimes wearing a ridiculous red skinny tie and hat.
The French criticized Senegal’s game when it looked headed for disaster, before the team emerged to fight back against the African champions. Garcia has left things up of late, promising that Lukaku will do his thing and if he keeps it up, the opposition will come under pressure from the Belgian. To that end, he now has 9000 “minimums” who have written to Garcia saying they will not release him.
The Brussels Times reported that more than 9,000 people have left messages to Garcia through the sorryrudi.be website, which was set up after Belgium’s dramatic World Cup victory over Senegal as many Red Devils fans regretted his prank.
The website asks, “Who still believed in Rudy Garcia in the 85th minute? Damned, collectively, tactfully answered. With tout bien pills, it’s time for an apology.”
“Sorry Rudy” website.
29-year-old Brussels resident Luca García (no relation to Rudy) came up with the idea. “Like many Belgians, I shouted ‘Rudie out!’ Screamed. In the 85th minute on my television,” Luca told the Brussels Times. “After a while, I had to swallow my words. Later, I felt I had to apologize to the national team manager. Rudy became a tactical mastermind.”
This change has the Belgians rushing to post soon
Lukaku scored in the 86th minute, followed minutes later by Yuri Tielemans in the 89th minute – three frantic minutes. Belgium did it to Japan in 2022, so this is a team that goes late..
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But Luca, who works at the Lucie advertising agency in Brussels, decided to set up a website where people like him could think he was tough on the national team manager.
“A colleague who is good at coding and I built the website very quickly, as a joke, with the intention of sending it to our friends who felt the same way after the game. And suddenly, we started seeing the number of comments increase. It’s all happening really quickly,” Luca said.
It began with his own message: “From Garcia to Garcia: Sorry Rudy, I’ll never doubt you again.”
Then Belgian beer brand Tout Bien, marketed by influencer and YouTuber Average Rob, got involved and the website quickly gained traction. These are apologies, requests to call, pick suggestions and jokes for the USA game: “If you don’t know what your next move is, neither will your opponents!”
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At the time of writing, there were 10,980 messages from fans on the Brussels website for Rudy.
“As long as the messages are positive, everyone is welcome on the site,” Luca said. “The main objective is to reach Rudy Garcia, so that he knows that there are at least 9,000 Belgians behind him.”
If Belgium beat the USA, they will face either Spain or Portugal in the quarter-finals.
“If we win against the US, I think the website will get a few thousand more comments,” he told the Brussels Times. “If we lose, we will monitor the comments posted to see if the website can stay online longer.”
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“We’ll see what happens in the game first,” Luca said. “I, for one, will no longer question his choices, and I would advise Rudy not to listen to the critics. Even if no one understands what he’s doing, it works.”