Leave Marouane Fellaini alone, you monsters

On Monday night, Belgium arrived at a World Cup crossroads. They were two goals down to Japan, and nothing was working. Roberto Martinez had presented his Plan A, and it had been found wanting. And so he turned to his bench, and to Marouane Fellaini.

In doing so, he arrived at a crossroads-within-a-crossroads: for Belgium’s tournament, but also for Martinez’s reputation. Because when Fellaini comes on for Manchester United, everybody chuckles at the state of the “biggest club in the world.” But when he comes on for Belgium, everybody screams. All that talent! All those brilliant players! And all those other players who are really good in Football Manager games! And you’ve gone for him.

As Plan Bs, go, Fellaini feels the footballing equivalent of that moment when you’re trying to fix something, but it won’t be fixed. In fact, it is refusing to be fixed. Nothing clever is working, and the instructions don’t make sense, and it was fine just yesterday but now everything is broken … and then you thump it on the top. BLAM. See how you like that, stupid broken thing.

Obviously this is a little harsh, not least because Fellaini is most of the time a better footballer than he is given credit for. The caricature — a lumbering bundle of maladroit misery, an elbow in human form — is just that, a caricature, exaggerated and often unkind. Some footballers’ reputations are barely dented by their moments of clownishness; others are forever defined by them. Fellaini will never escape the latter category.

But the other reason this is a little harsh is that bringing Fellaini on works. Not always, but perhaps (like giving something a good thump) a little more often than it should. Fellaini isn’t the kind of footballer you’d build a team around, at least not if you had any choice in the matter. But if you need a Break in Case of Emergency player, that’s almost a virtue. Here comes the agent of chaos: he’s got a big head, a velveteen chest, and nobody quite knows what’s going to happen. Your move.

This is one of the reasons Jose Mourinho was keen to keep him at Manchester United. (The others are to do with Mourinho’s forever war against everything, but that’s not relevant here.) And this is why Roberto Martinez passed over Michy Batshuayi, Thorgan Hazard, Youri Tielemans, and all the rest of Belgium’s options. Prettier players, definitely. Better players? Perhaps.

But the right players to bring on and throw at a tiring but well-organised Japan side who aren’t quite the biggest? No. Send for Marouane. We can assume Martinez wasn’t checking Twitter when Fellaini headed home the equaliser, but if he had been, he’d have been entirely within his rights to indulge in a couple of passive-aggressive favourites. Maybe even a quote tweet with a row of thinky faces. He called it right.

In truth, the real worry about Belgium wasn’t the efficacy of Plan B, but the wobbliness of Plan A. In the final moments, Japan may have been slightly too ambitious for their own good, but their approach genuinely unsettled their supposed betters. They forced the wingbacks deep into a back five, and they were able to find space in front of the defence for Shinji Kagawa to exploit. Meanwhile Kevin de Bruyne didn’t get into the game until the 94th minute.

Perhaps Japan never quite had Belgium entirely under control, but equally, Belgium never really looked in charge of the game. And next up are Brazil, who are significantly more dangerous at the sharp end and impressively resilient at the other. If Belgium end up needing Plan B against the tournament favourites, it might already be too late.