Thibaut Courtois’ father Thierry Courtois is not a big fan of the English media as he believes they haven’t been fair to his son. He tries to have a positive outlook of the situation but Thierry believes “the bar” set for the Chelsea goalkeeper is much higher than for other goalkeepers in the league.
Thierry has a habit of making a notes of the Blues goalkeeper’s clean sheets in an Excel file, since the early stages of his son’s career.
The Belgium international’s last clean sheet for the west London club came during Chelsea’s 1-0 victory over Manchester United in the FA Cup final.
Thierry revealed his son gets motivated by looking at the number of clean sheets and while discussing about the keeper’s performance, he spoke about the English press.
“In the beginning of Thibaut’s career, I started collecting these statistics,” the Belgian outlet Het Laatste Nieuws quoted Thierry as saying.
“I fill in my list every week because I like that. And Thibaut goes through my file so he can set goals for himself. ‘Still a clean sheet.’ It motivates him, without becoming an obsession.
“I think Thibaut is sufficiently in shape to be decisive for the national team (laughs). He showed that in the FA Cup final, where he was on top of his game. It’s good, because in the English press he had been criticised, but that is mainly because the bar for Thibaut is higher than for others.”
Thibaut’s father now remains hopeful that his son can impress for the national team at the 2018 World Cup. However, Thierry claims the Chelsea keeper’s priority for Belgium is to do well as a team in Russia.
“Belgium should do well as a collective – that is more important to Thibaut than to focus on individual targets,” he added.
