Tim krul penalty killer of niet???? OOrdeel zelf Lets say you are a midfield from Costa Rica. You and your team just have beaten Greece after penalties and now your are in minute 118 of the match againts the Netherlands. Your coach gave you clear goals, from the first minute: Go for the draw and then beat them with penalties. You have done that before, right? For 120 minutes you have survived one attack after another, multiple shots on post and cross-bar ... yet still you are alive. You start to believe that this luck has a higher meaning, you start to believe that you might reach the penalty series. Reaching the penalties is an almost certain victory, and deep in your mind you start to dream about the next game...and the next game...and, if an higher entity is supporting me...you start dreaming about ... Your confidence in a succesfull ending of this match reach epical proportions. But hey, whats that???? A subsitute ... a goalkeeper??? Now??? What the heck does that mean? You starting to worry, your suddenly stroke by an attack of fear! Whats going on here? Why would the Dutch change their goalkeeper now, knowing that for almost sure this match will end with a penalty kick? You look to your teammates, but they show the same signs of confusion. Nobody understands this, who is this new guy???? Then someones wispering in your ear ... softly ... and hours later you cant remember who ... pssst, thats Krul, the giant penalty killer from the Dutch. And if this isnt enough, the voice continues they say he stops more then half of the penalties in his whole life .... Then, invisible, it seems a cold wind blows over the field. You are starting to chill. How can this happen, its still 28 degrees right? Hesitation, confusion, fear, with every second your confidence drops. You look to the goalgetter with his long arms, his huge body. Why did you never heared about him before? Is this an alien, secret weapon? How did the Dutch hide this guy so far?? You look to the crowd around you, and can see the same confusion in their eyes, living between hope and fear in the eyes of your supporters. Even your coach, the national hero, is speechless, doesnt say anything, looks like a beaten dog. Its this moment, where suddenly you realize that you and your team reached the end-station, today, here in Salvador. Strangely enough, realizing that the dream stops here, causes a certain degree of acceptance. Its ok, we have done a great job and for sure when we arrive home we will be honoured. But today, here, our journey ends. The penalty kick, which is just about to start, is a formality. We will never know whether Tim Krull is a better penalty killer than Jasper Cillesen. This was not a substitute to get the best person for the job. This was a substitute to break a teams spirit. Psychology, purely, brilliant psychology!!
Posted on: Sun, 06 Jul 2014 10:07:35 +0000
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