Royston Drenthe overcome by stress

Monday 16 February 2009

While Klaas-Jan Huntelaar was finally in the starting lineup and celebrated his first goal for Madrid, Royston Drenthe was home alone, though surrounded by his family.

It's not going well with the former Feyenoord player, who did not make the cut for the third time in a row.

Officially it was a technical decision by coach Juande Ramos, but under normal circumstances Drenthe would have been named for Sunday's match against Gijon (4-0).

No less than five players were out among whom the injured Arjen Robben and Wesley Sneijder, and the suspended Rafael van der Vaart.

Plenty of place for Drenthe one would assume.

But according to sources within Real the player had asked his coach to leave him out for a while as he is overcome by stress and hasn't slept well for a while.

Insiders it's say it's because of some private circumstances, but others says that Drenthe at the moment is unable to deal with the tension at Real since he was jeered by his own fans last months in the game against Deportivo in Bernabéu.

"It's not nice when you are playing in your own stadium and it feels like Camp Nou. I need the support of the fans to find back to the right level again," Drenthe told a Spanish newspaper.

After the game against Deportivo, when he got booed after coming on as a substitute and before he had even kicked a single ball, he was almost in tear.

Last week the fans were tough on him again.

Real played a practice game against Castilla, the club's youth team, and despite a great goal from a free kick scorn was his part.

According to Spanish daily El País Drenthe feels incapable mentally to play for Real at the moment.

The newspaper quoted some sources within the Madrid technical staff saying Drenthe is being to hard on himself.

"He wants to keep an eye on the ball, on his team mates and his opponents all at once. But as he's trying to do all at once he is making mistakes. That is causing the stress," according to the anonymous source.

Drenthe came to Madrid in the summer of 2007 for 14 million euro.

Before Christmas he played regularly due to the many injuries in the squad, but since he missed a big chance away to Barcelona he has hardly played a minute.

Drenthe wasn't the only remarkable absentee.

Sneijder and Robben did train, but both suffered minor injuries after a game they played with Holland against Tunisia on Wednesday.

That opened the door for Klaas-Jan Huntelaar.

With Higuaín on the right replacing Robben, Huntelaar was up front next to Raúl.

After the club's icon scored his 308th goal for the club to open the score Huntelaar made it 2-0 shortly before the break.

He also had an assist and scored a second that was denied for offside.