"Vanhaezebrouck made me block"

INTERVIEWS Ryota Morioka and Anderlecht, it was not a successful marriage. In Het Nieuwsblad the Japanese looks back and tells what went wrong. In his eyes Hein Vanhaezebrouck is guilty, but the decision to leave fell only after a conversation with Fred Rutten.



Morioka feels himself "liberated" at Charleroi. "The club plays football that suits me, I have freedom of movement here, at Anderlecht every move was preprogrammed by Vanhaezebrouck, he made a robot of me, I had to think of so many things, that I blocked, but not only me. Some players lost their confidence. "

At Charleroi, Morioka found that confidence. The football is also better for him. "I get more freedom and I can follow my intuition. With Oshimen there is a striker who constantly dives into the back of the defense, I can send my passes, I need that, and with Anderlecht and Santini I had that much less. With purple-white I also had to play far from the striker. "

"Players felt like in the army"

During the last half of last season, Morioka was still important with six goals and three assists. But then the summer came and reports were that he was not in good condition. "However, I had followed my individual program, and normally you continue to build up, but at Vanhaezebrouck you had to be 100% on day one", according to the Japanese.

"Vanhaezebrouck let us run so much that we wondered if we were in the army, we also ran the risk of muscle injuries. At Beveren we trained a lot with the ball, but we were also physically good. "

"Anderlecht pushed me towards the Middle East"

Vanhaezebrouck left mid-December. "That first felt like a relief," admits Morioka. But he also saw no future for himself under the new coach Fred Rutten. "I talked to him during the winter training camp and he saw me as a controlling midfielder, I had to divide the game for the defense, infiltrate and then advance within heads, then I understood that there was little point in staying."

Morioka was named at Genk as a substitute for Pozuelo and he does not deny that Genk coach Philippe Clement contacted him. There was also interest from the Middle East. "Anderlecht pushed me to go there, clubs offered more than the Belgian ones, but I do not care about playing in the Middle East or China, my dream is Europe, even when I'm older, I will never choose for oil dollars."