“Seeing Thibaut trying to struggle to stay at the stage he has achieved is that he is well equipped to be the goalkeeper of Real Madrid. The simple way might have been throwing in the towel or beginning to blame someone because you are in such a tough position,” Belgian head coach Roberto Martinez said in admiration of goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois to El Bernabeu.
He continued, “Thibaut did the opposite. He displayed amazing wisdom, great self-criticism to the extent where he was important to Real Madrid. In modern football, there are no goalkeepers like Thibaut.”
Courtois played for the Belgian national team at the 2018 World Cup, but suffered a drop in shape in his first season at Real Madrid. In his second campaign, however Courtois became the undoubted No.1 for Zinedine Zidane and one of the key players in Los Blancos.
Martinez praised the goalkeeper for bouncing back like this after a difficult start in Spain. “He hasn’t changed, and that’s the good thing,” said Martinez. “Everything that happened on the pitch, I don’t think it ever affected Thibaut in a decisive way.
“He understood he had to develop his performance and, in a sense, stay at his best stage. I was looking at him with great pride.”
