He would never become a basic player in the Italian superpower. He was a ‘weird boy’ anyway, at least that’s how he was talked about in the Netherlands, he learned from friends. Now he is so important to Roma coach Jose Mourinho that he was not substituted in the final against Feyenoord on Wednesday evening despite early cramp attacks.
Feyenoord was not good, Roma was not good, he himself was bad, was Karsdorp’s harsh judgment in the garage of the Air Albania stadium on Wednesday night. “But that Cup is going to Rome, that’s the most important thing.”
Preventing 1-0, that was the crux, says Karsdorp, now five years Romanista. ‘Then we won’t give it away anymore. That’s what Mourinho brought in, that’s his strength. I have followed Feyenoord well this season. I really liked them. But I knew: if we prevent 1-0, it’s done. Then it is very difficult to get through with us. It wasn’t pretty, we played too much long ball after the 1-0, but if the final goes like this it’s fine.’
‘The whole of the Netherlands for Feyenoord’
These were strange weeks for Karsdorp, who played in the youth of Feyenoord from the age of 8 and left after winning the league title in 2017. His brother and father are Feyenoord fans. “But they cheered 100 percent when we made it 1-0. Family comes first anyway. My friends, that’s something different, they were for Feyenoord. I agree with them, the whole of the Netherlands was for Feyenoord.’
His first two seasons with Roma, which paid him 17 million euros, were marked by serious injuries. He returned to Feyenoord for another season on a rental basis. He would even have a tattoo of Feyenoord. “Ah, all those stories…”
He went into the game fairly relaxed on Wednesday. But unconsciously, all sentiments played a part. ‘Very strange, I got cramps after sixty minutes, I was completely through at the end.’ Several times he indicated to Mourinho that he could not continue. Laughing: “He won’t take me out, never.”
Mourinho wants winners
The Portuguese coach has already won five European top prizes with four different clubs. Karsdorp: ‘He is a phenomenon. He expects 120 percent, all the time, even with a recovery workout. He won’t get me out because he knows I’m going to go ahead.’
Mourinho wants to have winners, players who go through boundaries. ‘I’m very close with him, we joke a lot. But he can also be very angry with me. My kid recently had an ear infection, so it was on my chest all night. As a result, my back hurt. Then he’s all over the place. Can he really ignore me for two or three days?’
Where Feyenoord coach Arne Slot held many discussions prior to the final, Mourinho did the opposite. “He deliberately didn’t put a lot of pressure on it. Five minutes before we got on the bus to go to the stadium, we had a meeting anyway. I thought: now there will be a big speech or a motivational video. The doors closed. All he said was, “Guys, let’s go.” We thought: will there be nothing more? But it arrived anyway. Everyone started screaming.’
Unbeatable
Karsdorp believes that experience and fighting spirit were decisive against Feyenoord, not so much quality. “We have some European champions, many players who have already played the semi-finals of the Europa League. In Serie A we let it go, we put everything in the Conference League. If we really want to, we can’t be beat.’
He’s been conducting interviews in recent weeks. ‘A lot was said about me, I don’t have a good name in the Netherlands, I have no idea why. In the end, I always fought back, no matter what video appeared about me, what was said about me.’
After a question about his overcome injuries, the three-time international points to his knees and bare stomach. “Look, one, two, three scars. It’s never been easy for me. At Roma I could barely play the first two years. But in the past two seasons I came to more than a hundred games.’
He was fierce against Feyenoord, but moderate on the ball. “It was one of my worst matches.”
Karsdorp, who is back in the picture at Orange after five years of absence, will not avoid Rotterdam in the coming months. ‘I have a house there, an apartment. Of course I can walk there. I just did my duty.’