On the beginnings
“I started playing football when I was 6 or 7. Initially I wanted to be a striker, or at least be an outfield player. Then I started playing goalkeeper a bit. In the meantime I have completed my school education. And I really didn’t want to be a goalkeeper. You know, it was boring for me. You watch others play, you don’t enjoy it and you get angry. Then I went to Clairefontaine with a coach who told me: ‘If you reach the last round, stay in goal’. I reached the last round, so in the end I had to stay in goal. There was PSG following me. So my youth phase went like this“.
On the role of the goalkeeper
“You have to have personality, you have to be creative, you have to have a mind. The mind is key. In what we do, we all want to be number one. That’s the goal. Being the best goalkeeper in the world for a year is easy, but not be for several years. That’s why you have to work a lot mentally. Work, be motivated, never give up. No matter how many millions you earn or how famous you are, you have to keep working. For me this is just the beginning. Every day I work three times as much. And here, I’m working on the details. I’ve already figured out most of the fundamentals. I try to keep these basics and work on the details. ‘Why did I stop the ball?’. ‘Because I didn’t have my foot on the ball at that moment?’. ‘Why wasn’t I facing this way?’.
And then it becomes more of a mental job where in every situation, I have to be at least two or three seconds ahead. When the player has the ball, I already know I have all the solutions. Either shoot at the near post or cross or dribble. And I don’t put myself under pressure. I wake up every morning to work and to be the best. My teammates are with me, we play for the same team at the weekend, but when I leave training I have to be better than them. When there’s a match, my team has to win. If it doesn’t, that’s a problem. And so that I think I can maintain my level. In matches where we can lose 2-1, I concede two goals and I can’t do anything. But I think in my head what I could have done before this situation arises. If I make the mistake, I sit in front of the pc and watch the video, alone or with my coach. I also do it at night, because I like to think. I observe every detail. And then once I analyze my mistake, I look at where the other mistake was made.
If a player made a mistake, I think about what I could tell them to call them back so they don’t make that mistake. It’s these little details that made me who I am today. And I also have a team. I’m not really the type to read the press and all that. Sometimes I get notifications that I don’t really like. ‘Ah, so and so is better than you’. And stuff like that that annoys me because I know it’s not true. Then what do I do? Sometimes I go crazy. At 11pm I get up and go to the gym. I train, the third training of the day. Because I’ve already trained before. And I get up again the next day. And I’m not tired until the game. When that’s over and I’ve knocked out my opponent, I rest. Then I start all over again. It’s performance, what people say about me, even if I don’t care, but I like to be wrong. And there’s something I’ve been thinking about from a season where I failed, all of this. I lost my season, I lost six months, they kicked me out. And the thing that got into my head: ‘Don’t expect to see me fail.’ They expect me to fail, but I will never fail. This means I know that when I fail, there’s a rifle waiting for me. So every time I keep going“.
2023-08-04 08:32:00
#Maignan #tells #11pm #gym #wanted #striker #PSG #Fantacalcio
