Club Brugge secured a dramatic 4–2 playoff win over RSC Anderlecht on Saturday after squandering a three-goal lead at halftime. Kyriani Sabbe put them ahead inside five minutes, followed by goals from Aleksandar Stanković and Christos Tzolis before the break. Thorgan Hazard and Mihajlo Cvetković pulled Anderlecht back into the game, but Romeo Vermant's stoppage-time strike restored the three-goal cushion. Belgian outlet Het Laatste Nieuws later reported that manager Ivan Leko's post-match frustration was aimed at players returning from international duty—namely Stanković, Raphael Onyedika and Joel Ordóñez.
Leko's criticism drew swift reaction from former Brugge and Anderlecht forward Marc Degryse, who questioned the wisdom of his public remarks. "You don't make any friends with this," Degryse wrote in Het Laatste Nieuws via Voetbal Primeur. "What would national coaches like Rudi Garcia or Vincent Mannaert think if they saw those statements?" He added that international team staff are not amateurs and would take note of such comments. Onyedika, who completed the full match despite cramping, featured for Nigeria in recent friendlies, playing 60 minutes against Jordan and the full 90 in the 2–1 win over Iran.
Leko's needless public dressing-down of Onyedika risks more than just dressing-room tension—it could strain Nigeria's relationship with Club Brugge. When national team coaches like Eric Chelle invest in players' fitness for international duty, they expect clubs to respect that commitment, not undermine it with thinly veiled insults. The timing of these remarks, just days after Onyedika's Nigeria debut, makes them even harder to ignore.
