“Yeah, of course, of course. I think you have to if the club demands that, and the fans demand it of the club, they demand it of you. And if you don’t perform, I don’t think you will play.”
No polish, no playing to an audience and telling them what they want to hear. Just telling it as it is. Nous, like Matthijs, knows only one way. There has been no football upbringing with compromise and caveats, no second chances or second bests, just one bottom line: win always.
Getting to that point isn’t a flick-switch process. Mazraoui spelled it out, step-by-step during his first day as a Red. “I think, first of all, you have to do it together,” he said. “And that’s one big thing too, that everybody’s on one line. Everybody knows what to do, everybody knows what to expect from each other in the pitch so that you can also keep each other responsible if something doesn’t work out. At that moment, I think you have to have a kind of relationship that you can say these things to each other and that you accept it from each other. And I think from there on, you will really grow as a team. If you grow as a team and the confidence starts to kick in and you start to win games, you have winning streaks and you’re smashing the opponents. Then at one point you’re in the flow and then you have the feeling that nobody can beat you. And I hope this season is that season.”
