Real Madrid’s Thibaut Courtois: “Cristiano Ronaldo is missed”
By Hasan Karim
Thibaut Courtois has had quite the rocky debut season in Real Madrid. A shaky start for the player and the club, a change of coach and dealing with the departure of Cristiano Ronaldo, it is fair to say it has been a dramatic debut season so far.
The Belgian keeper recently spoke on how the club is feeling the absence of club record goalscorer, Cristiano Ronaldo, following his departure to Juventus last summer.
Whilst the fans and the media have noted how the departure of the 5 time Balon D’or winner has affected the team, the keeper has stated that he is not talked about in the dressing room at Real Madrid.
“He is not being talked about in the locker room, it is mainly the press that drops his name. There were matches that we lost in which we got 10 chances but did not score. At the same time, he scores two for Juventus. Then it’s easy to talk about him.”
Whilst the notable efforts of Karim Benzema have drawn plaudits, Courtois did state that the departure of Ronaldo is felt.
“If Ronaldo leaves and there is no real top attacker in his place, you know that it will be a difficult year, you take away 50 goals.”
“You hope that Benzema or Bale will score more and partly they do that too. We are making progress in the last few weeks. We have won the Club World Cup, are still active in the Copa del Rey and the Champions League. Okay, in La Liga we are 10 points behind. But sometimes Barcelona also has difficult matches that they win in the last minute.”
The Keeper did, however, say that this could be seen as a year of transition for Real, he said: “Maybe it’s a bit of a transitional year. For me, it does not matter much if the first year is less if the next ones are top.”
The keeper also discussed his time at Atletico Madrid and how the first six months following his arrival, Atletico struggled before the arrival of Diego Simeone who then went onto lead them to the La Liga title in 2012/13 and a UCL final against Real.
“At Atletico, it did not go well for the first six months either, then Simeone came and we were away. Those first six months have already been forgotten by many people.”
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