Standard Liège, set for their biggest showdown of the year on Friday night against Anderlecht, will have to do without American stalwart defender Oguchi Onyewu thanks to the waffling of the Belgian FA.
"It's the Belgian federation", explained the exasperated Onyewu. "They've wanted me suspended forever, so they finally did it."
The American's suspension is a culmination of a series of appeals and rulings dating back to October when Onyewu earned straight red cards in successive matches resulting in a four match ban for the defender - two games for each red.
Originally the club had decided not to appeal the decision, but realizing that Onyewu would miss the December 14th contest against Anderlecht, reversed course and mounted a late challenge to the ruling.
Club and player earned a reprieve since the appeal was heard just before the winter break and allowed Onyewu to participate in what would've been the fourth game of his suspension, against Anderlecht.
Finally, in March, the Belgian FA ruled that no exceptions would be made, and Onyewu would have to serve the entire four game suspension. However, instead of forcing the American to sit out the next match, they further ruled that the suspension would be served during the return match versus Anderlecht.
"I don't even think about it any more because it's so stupid," commented the American. "You really can't say anything about it; you've just got to live with it."
"It's out of my hands so I can't really think about it anymore."
Despite being without the services of the defender as well as midfielder Sergio Conceiçao who received a five month suspension - for spitting on an opposing player and then hitting the referee while shoving his jersey in his face - Onyewu still believes Les Rouches have the upper hand.
"Right now the league is for us to win or it's for us to lose. We're in pole position."
"I know that Anderlecht is just waiting for us to slip up and take that opportunity like we did to them about three weeks ago, so I think it's important that we stay on our toes and stay focused for the rest of the season."
Standard hold just a one point lead over their closest rivals and a weekend victory could extend the lead to four points with two games left to play.
"Hopefully we'll go to Anderlecht in good spirits and motivated and hopefully we'll get the three points out of there," Onyewu added.
With their Belgian Cup dream over after being knocked out of the semi-finals by Zulte-Waregem, the Clemson alumni has his sights set on the only prize that's left.
"[Against Zulte] we won but we lost", the big man confessed. "The goal that I got - I felt good to get a little bit of redemption from the goal that I gave away [in the first leg]."
"If I didn't give that goal away we would have advanced, but football is like that. You can't live by saying I would've, I could've, I should've. You have to live in the moment and in the moment we didn't advance."
"Right now all we have to do is think about the title - the league championship."
Onyewu will return to action next weekend when Standard pay a visit to 10th place side KV Roeselare on April 30th. |
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