Dick Advocaat Gets A Hero’s Sendoff

This whole meeting the new signing at the airport business has turned into a common, if not almost ritualistic, practice in the football world. But you don’t really hear too many cases of fans meeting an outgoing player at the airport, and you certainly don’t hear of it when a coach has been fired. Not the case in St. Petersburg, where recently canned Dick Advocaat was given a teary-eyed farewell on his way out of town.

Armed with orange balloons as a tribute to a Dutchmen, Zenit’s fans, who’ve been the subject of controversy more than once in recent times, sang songs and gave flowers to a man who was rushed out of town amidst poor results and squabbles with management over the transfer policy – despite the fact that Advocaat had signed to take over the Belgian national team when his Zenit contract ran up later this year.

Of course this hero’s sendoff wasn’t for a man who came in a flew steadily under expectations. Advocaat won Zenit’s first ever Russian Premier League title with the club in 2007, and in the process cracked open the Moscow hegemony. Just months later he went out and took the UEFA Cup back to St. Petersburg, the club’s first ever continental haul. And all this in less than three years. In fact, things only began to downhill when Andrei Arshavin started his pouting and was finally sold to Arsenal.
So if ever a man deserved his farewell, it was Advocaat.

And maybe this should become more commonplace than meeting the new signing at the airport: meet the man who’s already done something for the club and deserves the gratitude.

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Category: World Football