For twelve seasons, Bram Castro was under contract with a Dutch club. The Belgian, now 36, successively played for Roda JC, PSV, MVV and PSV's opponent on Saturday Heracles Almelo. Since this season Castro plays for KV Mechelen, playing in the First Division B. "I do miss the Netherlands a bit. Especially your mentality," the Fleming told PSV.nl
It has been almost a year since PSV and Heracles last crossed swords on the Almelo artificial turf. A bleak, icy wind raged through the Polman Stadium on Jan. 21 when it last happened. The standout of that game was not a PSV player, but a Herac member. Goalkeeper Bram Castro brimmed with self-confidence and turned out to be an almost impassable stand-in-the-road on that winter day.
92.47
The goalie was voted Man of the Match by the Heracles crowd. Yet it ended up being the match of Luuk de Jong. The striker, almost typical of PSV that season, scored the liberating 2-1 in the very last attack, with 92.47 on the clock. "In the end it became a very frustrating day for us. If you can get a point against frontrunner PSV it's fantastic, but unfortunately. I think it really was the very last attack of the match, because there wasn't even a kick-off after that. Really sour. I don't think it's luck, it's a quality. As an opponent you're under so much pressure against PSV, then at a certain point you can't stop it either."
Dual
Yet it worked out quite well. Heracles also offered good offensive play against leaders PSV and also missed chances in the closing stages. "A lot of clubs struggle in Almelo. Especially top teams, they don't like playing on artificial turf anyway," Castro knows. "Duels against PSV, Ajax, or Feyenoord I always found a bit of a dichotomy. If you were down 1-0 after five or 10 minutes, there was a good chance you would end up getting four, five, six around your ears. But if you got through the first twenty minutes without any damage, you quietly started hoping for a result. That worked out quite well a number of times and last season was a good example of that. But yes, those last seconds."
December 16, 2015
An equally fraught duel between the two teams was scheduled two seasons earlier. PSV and Heracles were paired together in the eighth final of the cup tournament. It became that Dec. 16, 2015, a crazy duel in which everything was involved: a red card, penalty kick, own goal and again a goal in injury time. In that match, too, there was a leading role for Bram Castro, but this time not in a positive sense. Heracles took the lead twice and after a red card for PSV goalkeeper Remko Pasveer, a cup stunt seemed in the making.
Catch
Until minute 69. Castro tried to turn a seemingly simple cross from Adam Maher into a catch. Instead, he pushed the leather into his own goal as it were: 2-2. "Those are the normally the easiest balls. In my head I was already resuming the game. I already heard Luuk de Jong coming at my back, but I was well in time. It was raining very hard and the ball was all wet. As a result, it slipped out of my hands into the goal."
Lloris
A mistake with major consequences, but three years later the Belgian puts it into perspective. "Something like that shouldn't happen, of course. You really don't want to experience that as a goalkeeper. Anyway, Hugo Lloris also made a big and avoidable mistake in the World Cup final. As a goalkeeper that is your fate, but you can really sink through the floor at such a moment. In the end, I think it was Locadia who made the 3-2 in the last minute. Another big blow."
Three months PSV
Castro was under contract in Eindhoven for three months out of twelve seasons in the Netherlands. From October 2010 to January 2011, he served as third goalkeeper. "Jeroen Zoet had some physical problems at the time. Although it was only a short period, I still follow PSV. There really is a team. It was the same in previous years, but now they are also playing really nice football. They are really running a very good season."
