Olivier Vliegen

I sat down on the bed and looked around. Four white walls, a table with a television and one wardrobe. No kitchen or even a refrigerator. 

An anonymous, plain, unappealing room.

For the next few months, it was to become my home, my retreat, my base, and my place for recovery, but also a prison and a restaurant because Covid was raging and everything was closed. 

There was nowhere to go for a hot meal. In the morning I went out to buy bread. We ate lunch in the cabin, but dinner was again mixed from whatever I could scramble together from a shop.

I was supposed to spend the spring season here in Senica, Slovakia, but I can’t say I wanted to be here at all. They told me straight up after one friendly test match that they would take me as a number two, to have me ready if the number one goalie got injured.

That didn't seem enough to me. On my way back to Prague on the train I sat in deep thought. Or rather in doubt.

What am I doing here?

Why am I going through this?

Am I even supposed to be a footballer? Is there a point to this?

They don’t want me anywhere and then I end up here…

I watched the passing landscape through the window, opened a can of beer and couldn’t get rid of the feeling that this might be a sign telling me to return to Belgium and start doing something else with my life. It's a thought I had many times before.

What swayed me was talking with my agent who offered a different perspective. As a number two, he said, I was one step closer and with some luck, I would be playing in the first league soon. In Liberec, to which I belonged at the time, this seemed unrealistic. I was fourth in their hierarchy. My only option was to train and watch the games from the stands.

So, a few days later I sat down on a bed in a hostel in Senica and surveyed the place that might offer me my first real chance for a breakthrough in the football world.

A prodigy.

It's not a term you would have used to describe me as a child. I was still playing in our village at 14. I became a goalie because I was tall and not afraid of jumping under my teammates' feet. Representatives of bigger clubs came to watch me but for example Genk, which was closest to us, refused to take me. 

Football is by far the most popular sport in Belgium. Pitches can be found almost everywhere, and many boys play it, so the competition is great. Still, from a very young age I had the desire to do something big and even my stepdad supported me and encouraged me to become a professional. He wanted me to work on myself, saying that it would pay off.

The first step on this path was leaving for Standard Liège and beginning high school. I had to live in the dorms there and learn French because I come from the Flemish part of Belgium where we speak a language based on Dutch.

It was all a sort of preparation for my future in Czechia, which of course I couldn’t have known at the time.

My mom encouraged me to be independent ever since I was little. We were on our own and she had to work while I was in elementary school. I had to wake up and get to school on my own. For a 10-year-old kid to bike to school on his own is not common. But we had no other choice. For me, there was no radical change in Liège and after a year, I got word from Genk, saying that they were impressed by my progress and would be interested in me now. I could move closer to home again and even got a peek at the A-team as a third goalie at age 17, while I mostly played for the B-team.

It was great, but at the end of the year, they came to me to tell me they didn’t need me anymore.

“We’re sorry Olie, but we have many more young goalkeepers, and you just don’t fit into our concept anymore,” they told me.

Even so,I was lucky because in my last game for the B-team I played in a junior cup against Anderlecht and their coach asked ours if he knew about any available goalkeepers.

“Sure, take Olie here,” they said.

Instead of being left unwanted, I transferred to the most famous Belgian club and played in the Champions League against PSG or Bayern Munich.

Honestly, back then I wasn’t acting like someone who aims for a professional career. It was a wild ride for me that I tried to enjoy as much as possible. My childhood friends were living in the neighboring town, and we often partied together or visited nightclubs. I would crash at their place and get up early in the morning to catch the morning train to make it on time to the morning practice.

I laugh now, shaking my head a little at my past self, but I simply needed to get out and have fun. Otherwise, I don’t think I would be able to handle what the future held. Like the first months in Liberec for example.

I played regularly in the B-team at Anderlecht, but I didn’t see any chance of moving up to the A-team. It was also a turbulent year for the club – the ownership changed, and I had five different goalkeeper coaches. My agent knew the previous owner so if I had a small advantage that I soon lost. After a year, I was right back where I had been before.

“We won’t offer you another contract, you can start looking elsewhere.”

"Well, that’s nice," I thought, "but where?"

At that point, I didn’t really believe I would continue playing football. All of the league clubs were full, and the only offer came from a third league, but only in an arrogant way from the owner who told me: “For some five hundred euros a month you can join us.”

I didn’t appreciate such an attitude and at that moment it didn’t make sense for me to focus on a goalkeeper career. I was already thinking about what to do next when I got a call from a well-known football agent. He was helping a Czech agent Martin Říha bring foreign players to Czechia. He asked me if I would attend tests in Sparta Praha.

Sparta Praha?!

Sure, why not! I knew the club and it felt amazing to have such an opportunity.

I was impressed by Sparta’s facilities alone, even after my experience with Anderlecht. And I was equally impressed by Prague. I trained in Strahov in the morning and spent my afternoons sightseeing and exploring the city. Nicolae Stanciu, who had been one of the team leaders during the season I spent at Anderlecht, was also at Sparta and was kind and friendly with me. However, the fairy tale ended after one week when I returned to Belgium with the news that Sparta was not interested in me.

 I understood. After all, it is a rich club with its own good academy. Why would they need me? They’d rather grow one of their own or buy a ready-made goalie.

I had a great trip, but my football perspective was still limited, just like before.