Courtois praises the white dressing room

Real Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois underlined the unity that exists in the Merengue locker room, “one of the best, if not the best” in which he has evolved, which makes everyone “fight” for their teammate in the “difficult times”, as well as how he valued the “hunger” of the team to want to “win everything every year”. “We are young, there is a good friendship between all of us, we go to dinner together, we do things with couples. The team is very close-knit, in difficult times, when it was necessary to come back, everyone fights for their partner “, estimated the Belgian objective in an interview with Europa Press, as the protagonist of the official campaign of the Xiaomi 12T Pro, under the slogan ‘Moments on another level’.

The goalkeeper, one of the centerpieces of this winning Real Madrid, acknowledged that the current one is “one of the best locker rooms” he has been in, “perhaps the best”. “It’s a pleasure to train every day. It’s very important to stay hungry,” he added of life with his teammates. The goalkeeper was the MVP of last year’s Champions League final, with saves on merit, actions he has already achieved in previous qualifiers against PSG, Chelsea and City. His last big year gave him a high status in the white club, an entity in which to succeed “you have to know how to manage the pressure” and “to be able to make those key saves to lead the team to victory”. “You have pressure from many madridistas around the world and that’s good, they demand a lot from you and that makes Real Madrid great too,” he admitted. Moreover, he is confident that it will be possible to see ‘a better Courtois than last year’. “Two years ago I didn’t have such a ball, we trained him a lot with Ancelotti, he may look better to you. Football is changing, today’s goalkeeper is no longer the same as 10-15 years ago. You have to adapt to me, I’m sure I can improve in some aspects, I always want to improve and learn”, explained the goalkeeper who made 61 saves in the last edition of the Champions League.

And a lot has had to do with the work of Carlo Ancelotti, a coach with whom he is “very comfortable and very comfortable on the pitch”. “You can tell I feel very good and that helps you play well,” he admitted. Although he insisted that every coach he worked with “has been important”. “Mourinho, Simeone, Conte… Everyone has their philosophy, we have to adapt,” he said. Likewise, Courtois highlighted the character and attitude of the white team at a start where ‘bumps are normal’, as ‘you can’t always be one hundred percent’. “It’s not possible for everything, otherwise all the matches would be 0-0,” he quipped. “One of the keys is that a lot of us are still hungry, including those who have won a lot, like Karim, Modric, Kroos. We don’t slack off and we want to keep winning as much as possible every year. After a draw or a loss, we are all fed up.” and we want to show that it’s Real Madrid,” he said.

That of Qatar, the third World Cup for Courtois, will be the first to be played in winter, in the middle of the season, which made the Belgians think that they would arrive “in better condition” at the tournament. “But with so many matches in October, we didn’t know how we would get there…”, he lamented. “It’s the start of the season and the problem will be if there is a small injury… We all want it, it will be different. Before it was at the end and you could give the last kick to your body because then the season was over,” he added. Belgium are framed in Group F and face their last chance of this “golden generation” -with names like Hazard, De Bruyne, Lukaku, Carrasco, among others-, and start as favorites to lead against Morocco, the Croatia and Canada.