I Owe My Form To Van Breukelen, Says Edwin
Thursday 26th April 2001
Edwin Van der Sar has revealed that former Holland international Hans Van
Breukelen is to thank for rediscovering his form as Juventus maintain their
efforts to win the Scudetto.
Van der Sar came in for fierce criticism earlier in the season and he was
blamed for the club's early exit from the Champions' League.
But the Juventus goalkeeper has turned his form around and is now a key
figure as Carlo Ancelotti's side bid to overturn Roma's lead at the top of
the table.
"I was talking to people, talking to trainers, to players, anyone I could -
old goalkeepers like Hans Van Breukelen, Louis van Gaal and people here at
Juve. The people here at Juve, the players and board of directors, all had
faith in me which is very important when you have a moment when you are not
playing well.
"It was the first time anything like that has ever happened to me," he told
Reuters. "It was strange and you don't expect that something like this can
happen to you. You don't want to believe it. But there comes a point when
you have to believe it. You have to recognise that you are not playing like
you used to, like you are capable of.
"You ask yourself things and you start to want to try different things and
then you lose your points of reference. You start to think and when you
think you lose that fraction of a second and it affects you when you need to
take action. That happened to me and it was a very strange feeling, I really
don't want to feel it again.
"When you are in a situation like that to work more or to do more is not the
answer. It is about concentration and faith in yourself and you don't get
that back by training three hours or something. Not for a goalkeeper anyway.
"For a tennis player it is obvious if your backhand is not functioning then
you play three hours on backhand, that's logical. But for a goalkeeper it's
not the case. In training I focused on doing things to get my confidence,
some good exercises but not training hard or more.
"I think it's going to just hit you - it hit me - and you don't have a clue
why it is hitting you. The most important thing is first of all to keep the
damage to as little as possible. For a goalkeeper that's hard because every
mistake is always a goal.
"But it's important that every time you have a problem you don't keep it to
yourself and say, 'I'll solve it later'. It's important to speak about it
right away and not three months later. That's the biggest lesson I learnt."
