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Royston Drenthe "I am not the coach's
pet"
VI
Thursday 31 July 2008
Royston Drenthe is about to come
to the start of the Olympic Games in top shape.
The player of Real Madrid and the
Dutch Olympic Team was struggling with an injury to
his knee and Holland boss Foppe de Haan still isn't
all too happy with the results of his physical tests.
In Dutch magazine Voetbal
International explains how he's doing at the moment.
"Because I seriously burdened
my left knee after the injury I still have some pain
in the right knee at the attachment of the tendons.
But for the rest I am top fit, or else I wouldn't be
here. If I wouldn't feel 100% I would have declined.
I don't want to let down my team mates."
Drenthe would like to discern the
picture people have as if De Haan treats him as his
pet.
That showed from the amount of
labor the coach would have him do in the morning.
"The coach found my muscles
got sour to quickly. That's not a pleasure to hear and
I don't agree. I think I am best placed to judge about
my body."
"Besides: I do make the tests,
so that means I can keep up. I still have seven days
for training before the first match against Nigeria.
But okay, the fact that this is the way the coach treats
me indicates that the picture of our relationship is
not entirely correct. People often say I'm the coaches
pet, but he will call me on the carpet just as hard."
Drenthe is confident that Oranje
can get a result at the Bejing Olympics.
"It's now a matter of fiddling
all the individual qualities together into a balanced
team. That is important. Brazil had the best players
at the 2006 World Cup, but they never were a team."
"Often it's just changing
the team in one position to make it work. If we manage
we can go for a medal in China. That will see me back
in Madrid with a very good feeling that I can feed on
there."
Drenthe had an eventful last 12
months.
"Hectic even. First we won
the U-23 European Championship with Holland, then I
got transferred to Madrid. I played matches in Bernabéu,
had the honor of cheering with Fabio Cannavaro, Guti,
Ruud van Nistelrooy, Wesley Sneijder and Iker Casillas,
we won the league. And in April my first daughter Jemay-Lee
was born. All these impressions are a speed course in
maturing.'
Playing football on one of the
many squares in Madrid does not go with the status of
a mature professional.
"Robinho, Marcelo and Gonzalo
Higuaín are always in for a game of street football.
Together with some of the lads from the neighborhood
we just mess about a bit, fooling around like I did
before when I was a kid in the streets of Rotterdam."
"It brings back the pure pleasure
that made me love football years ago. But off late we
don't get to it so much. We got a fine talking-to from
the club, who thought street football wasn't all that
sensible."
The club also feel that his fanatic
work outs shouldn't get out of hand.
"Some of the medical staff
feel I am getting too big. But I am mainly focussing
on my legs. As a little boy I used to watch Clarence
Seedorf and Edgar Davids. What struck me the most was
how firmly they stood on their legs."
The fact Drenthe can be found in
the fitness room a lot more than before is mainly due
to his colleagues.
"Big players like Cannavaro,
Sneijder and Van Nistelrooy train for themselves a lot
apart from the group training. Before I really had to
push myself to work with the weights, but not anymore.
I now realize that I do this for me and not for the
gaffer."
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