I woke up early to tell you that yesterday I visited Thibaut Courtois in his house and, in Night Radio StadiumI discovered a fantastic conversationalist, natural, sincere and self-critical. With himself and with his teams.
Courtois usually does the opposite of what he does in goal, because with the microphone Zero Wave He did not answer questions or use clichés. He is intelligent and talented. He told me that he speaks more than eight languages. He is fluent in Dutch, French, Spanish and English. And he speaks good German, Italian, Portuguese and Hebrew, because of his wife. He could have been a volleyball professional, but he chose soccer. He started as a left back, but ended up as a goalkeeper when he was ten years old and no one has moved him from the goal since then.
Courtois is very special because it is rare to find a football player who is capable of reflecting on a game, at a thousand revolutions, as soon as it ends, with the precision and depth with which the Belgian does. You transcribe his opinion and it is enough for Segurola’s own column.
It is worth saving that little bit of radio time that he gave us on Onda Cero and that I tried not to spoil, because the program could have been done by Courtois himself.
But I also had to take a while to explain what in Portugal they call now ‘The Christian case’. Ronaldo left his team’s training camp in Copenhagen yesterday, upset with his coach for having him warm up in the second game of this week and, finally, not having a minute.
He wasn’t going to play the third either, today Thursday. He ordered that his private plane went to Denmark to pick him up and at dawn he landed in Madrid. It’s the advantage of having an airplane. If I get that heat, at least I have to wait until the next day.
The point is that The end of a player like Cristiano with his country has to be different, at the height of his legend. I guess it’s not so easy to know when it’s time to close the door so they don’t slam the door on you.
