Vincent Kompany is calling upon some extremely challenging moments during his playing career to ensure he stays calm following Burnley’s tough start to the season.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00 We talk about Hamburg, I was the biggest signing there in the history of the club and I got there and I was injured straight away.
00:08 Torn my Achilles tendon out for nine months, my mother passed away in that time, I was out of the house for the first time, my sister got cancer.
00:16 And the club was fighting against relegation where they came from the Champions League but all the big players, I think it was Nigel de Jong, Jerome Boateng, Rafael van der Waard, everyone was injured at the same time.
00:26 The squad we assembled was not playing the games anymore and we were playing against relegation.
00:32 And just spending Christmas at the club, working hard on my own because what's the point of going home and stuff like this.
00:39 But you get out of it, eventually you get out of it. That's my story, right? Everybody's got a different story.
00:46 Those are the moments where I know, OK, this is what I did in these moments.
00:50 At the very end of it, people want to talk about success and the trophies and stuff but my journey wasn't just like...
00:57 My journey was much more complicated than the trophies you've seen me lift at the end.
01:03 So I feel I'm in quite a position where I'm actually good for these positions.
01:09 I'm good to be the guy when you have success that keeps saying it's not enough.
01:15 But I'm also good in moments where it's up against you and you keep believing, you keep going. That's in my nature.
01:23 But you learn a lot. People don't know it but if there were prizes on young talents back in the days,
01:32 and if the market was like this and if there were all these FIFA gold cards or whatever for you,
01:36 I would be pretty high up in my first two years at Anderlecht.
01:40 Football manager court, it's quite early in those days.
01:45 But then you go from being this super talent with all these bad habits of a talent as well,
01:51 where you think you're better than you really are.
01:54 You get away with stuff because people see the value in you and so they're not always going to tell you.
01:59 You get a lot of advisors.
02:01 And then from that year in Hamburg that I explained to you, you learn pure humbleness.
02:07 You learn that when you're on the way up, stay humble because when you're on the way down, you'll pay for it.
02:16 But I was lucky to, that's why I don't complain, I don't regret.
02:21 I was lucky to learn these lessons when I was young enough to still do something about it.
02:26 And in the end, the successful career I've had,
02:31 I'm proud of it because, I know we're deviating a little bit,
02:37 but I'm proud of it because in the biggest story, I had a lot of doctors say to me,
02:42 "You might be in trouble."
02:44 At 14, they told me at 24 I'd be done.
02:47 Then I had my back at 20, where it was at 19, and then Achilles tendon.
02:53 And it was always the stories about like, he's never going to be fit.
02:56 So, that helps in these moments as a coach as well, and that transfers.
03:02 And I think that's why we got 101 points as well last year, because we didn't rest, we just carried on.
03:09 It's a cycle for me.
03:10 This is year one in a cycle of, or year two in a cycle of three, four, five years.
03:16 And within this, I see a very exciting team.
03:19 Very, very exciting team.
03:20 So, yeah, I'm in a good environment.