Jan Vertonghen is very much respected in football at the moment. Along with Tottenham teammate Toby Alderweireld he’s formed a brilliant central defensive partnership which is a cornerstone of Mauricio Pochettino’s success.
Prior to Belgium’s match against the Netherlands last week, Vertonghen was bigged up in the Belgian media, and so of course something bad happened. The Tottenham defender gave away a penalty to allow the Netherlands to score, with Belgium later equalising.
One pundit in Belgium is very upset indeed. After ranting about Roberto Martinez and team selection, Herman Brusselmans turned his anger to Vertonghen, and said of the Tottenham player: “1-0 for the Dutch after a stupid penalty mistake from Jan Vertonghen. And I’ve always thought that Vertonghen is a sensible boy. On the contrary! A dumbo! An idiot! A nitwitted dead head.”
Herman seems to like getting himself attention, and it’s obviously worked otherwise we wouldn’t be typing this. But is this really the standard of Belgium punditry? It even manages to make English punditry look good.
Not mainly a pundit, Herman made his name as an author, and is described as a playwright, poet and columnist. This clearly isn’t his greatest work.
