Discomfort, as was clearly visible on Sunday, comes in various shapes and degrees. First there was the spectacular interview with Joris Luyendijk in Buitenhof† That started with a thin voice and went via criticism from Neelie Kroes and Sylvana Simons, to a sneer at the editors, to a heartfelt apology to Kroes, via an analysis by Simons about the lack of empathy in men with seven finches, to a completely unexpected swipe. from Luyendijk to presenter Twan Huys and degenerated into a chaotic discussion, in which Luyendijk looked so unhappy that it is a miracle that he did not get up from the table, opened the window behind Huys and jumped into the IJ.
Ha, that could be worse, Edwin van der Sar must have thought. A few hours after Luyendijk, he appeared in front of the microphone of ESPN reporter Hans Kraaij Jr. It started with the body language of the general manager of Ajax. A confident smile, a little loose movement of the arms and that insufferable not looking into the eye of the interlocutor – that is so obvious in the football world, but unworthy of the director of a multimillion-dollar company.
First question: why it had taken so long for Van der Sar to explain the Overmars situation. First answer: ‘Yes, I don’t know what you mean by explanation, Hans.’ What followed was a mudslide of loose thoughts and half-finished sentences, which were stuck together here and there with the words ‘actually’ or ‘case’, from which the listener had to conclude for himself that he first wanted to put things in order internally at Ajax. before speaking to the press.
When Kraay asked him why Van der Sar had addressed the sponsors, but kept quiet to the supporters, that smile appeared again. He understood very well that ‘you’ would want that, ‘because you are a TV station’.
When asked why Ajax coach Erik ten Hag had to be the first from the organization to appear in front of a microphone last Wednesday, and not Van der Sar himself, there was an equally ridiculous answer. ‘Let me ask you a question in return: if I had answered those questions, wouldn’t you have asked Erik ten Hag those questions?’ That wasn’t the point, Kraay rightly said. “Actually, you should have been standing there.” Van der Sar disagreed.
Painful television that almost broke your toes off. This was indeed partly due to discomfort, from the fact that Van der Sar was also taken by surprise by the situation, that he is not used to giving these kinds of interviews. That he may be less good with words than with sponsors. But there was something else in Van der Sar’s defensive, muddled vocabulary: the mistrust of journalism and the scorn of the media. We are Ajax, we owe you no explanation. That will often be the case, but this time it is really different.