How haunting experience at Hamburg is helping Vincent Kompany stay calm following Burnley's tough start to the season
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.
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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.