Mathijsen no longer bothered by criticism

Saturday, 5 June 2010

Joris Mathijsen no longer loses sleep of the constant criticism on the defense of the Dutch national team. "I believe we have shown that we have a nice block of four at the back," he said.

"Look at the statistics. Just how poor are we defensively? We don't concede a lot of goals and we win most of our matches. There's a good block of four and the two holding midfielders (De Jong and Van Bommel, df) are pretty decent as well."

"The criticism no longer bothers me. I just hate it when it gets personal. I'm looking forward to the World Cup and I'm confident that it will be a good tournament. We have all grown stronger, you can see that," says the Hamburg player.