Sergio Romero: I owe Louis van Gaal so much, joining Manchester United has been very emotional
“I am back with my old manager and I am so happy,” said
Romero.
AFP/Getty
First spell: Romero playing for Dutch side AZ Alkmaar
“I owe Louis van Gaal so much. I will tell you what I told the boss the first time we worked together: that when you have an Argentine in your team, you get a never-give-up mentality.
“I find it incredible that I am now at this club after the year that I have had. I wasn’t wanted anywhere else, but I am coming towards the strongest and best part of my football life.”
When Van Gaal took Romero to Alkmaar in 2007, he had a rule at the club that the players could only talk Dutch. It was then that the keeper discovered a side to the disciplinarian Dutchman that will surprise many.
Romero recalled: “I was told that Van Gaal only allowed the players to speak Dutch – and that the rule was not broken for anyone.
“I felt as if I had arrived in a complete new world in Holland. I’d spent my entire youth with my first club, Racing Club in Argentina.
“But then I found out that the coach was not as hard as everyone had said.
“He helped me by speaking to me in Spanish every day, talking in a very quiet voice so that the other players could not hear him and know that he had broken his own rule. That was a warm, human touch. “He helped me through the difficult days in my new life.”
It was Van Gaal who made me an international player.
“I will never forget the morning he told me that he had been speaking on the telephone to a certain Mr Maradona and that the coach of Argentina wanted to select me.
“I now want to make him proud again after the crisis of what happened to my hand in Alkmaar.
“I am so proud of where I stand today. My wife and my two kids are so proud. And I know for sure that my father, who is in heaven, is also proud.”
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/sergio-romero-owe-louis-van-6257502