Stefanos Kapino on Sportish: “It’s a sin for Messi not to win the World Cup, at 21 I couldn’t go to certain quarters”

THE Stefanos Kapino talk to “Mundial morning show“ with Andrea Palobarini, Ilias Kallonas and Maria Kouvelis.

His 28-year-old goalkeeper Bielefeld spoke about the goalkeepers who excelled at this year’s World Cup while also declaring that he wants to lift the trophy for Lionel Messi.

In fact, looking back on his past and journey in Greece, the former Panathinaikos and Olympiakos goalkeeper spoke about the pressure he had to deal with and the importance of expert help.

For Bielefeld: “It’s the fifth season in a row that I’ve been in Germany, so I’m getting used to it a bit, but it has its pros and cons.”

For his future: “At 28 you still have a lot to give as a goalkeeper and it’s really a position you mature with age, something I didn’t believe in when I was young. They call me now”. At that age you feel like you’re in Some situations are more ready than ever to deal with them. And looking at my career, I certainly want to play a lot more, I still have to give something. There were some things that could have been different.”

For which goalkeeper excelled at the World Cup: “Morocco’s Bono is definitely a very good goalkeeper, but because of the positions and because I watch a lot of football, I knew him, I didn’t wait for the World Cup to confirm it. And I like Martines a lot too.” because he doesn’t, he’s played a lot and he’s made a really big comeback in his career. I like it and I admire it because he’s been very consistent since then. It’s not so much about the saves he’s going to make as how he’s going to lead, how he’s going to come out.”

What is important for a goalkeeper in a penalty shoot-out: “Penalties are the last piece that has to do with work. That is, it is a purely psychological matter. Before you go to the goal, the goalkeeping coach has given you some information, you know where they will shoot. The thing is, it takes a bit of luck to figure out where it’s going to shoot, or to tell you it’s going to fall to the left, fall to the left and catch it. After that, the whole psychology changes for you, but also for the other team. And at that moment, the goalkeeper looks like a “mountain” in front of you. That changes the psychology, not whether you have worked. The penalties also play a role. But these goalies are good at penalties because they take penalties in their leagues.

For his favorite team at the World Cup: “I’ll also be graphic. I’m cheering for Argentina for Messi. He’s an alien and he deserves it. The best player who ever played not to win a World Cup is a sin. Both Messi and Ronaldo are .” amazing, but Messi is something else”.

Whether Messi needs to win the World Cup to earn the title of Greatest Of All Time: “People tell you that he didn’t get it because he’s the best? So that will certainly be another stone in his great career, but I also think that football used to be very different. We don’t discuss that .” Of course, he couldn’t play Maradona now, but I think today’s football is a bit more difficult than it was then.”

Whether anything has changed in the goalkeeper position: “The position of goalkeeper has become a science. When I started we just had to catch the ball, which I’ve been for generations. Now goalkeeper is one of the most difficult positions on the field because you have to be good with your feet, athletic be, be tall, be good in goal, be good in the air, one-on-one, that is, you have to be good at many things at the same time, today, how football is played you had to be under goal when the ball coming to chase him away, and certainly some exits”.

How he became a goalkeeper: “For some reason I’ve loved playing in goal since I was little. I wasn’t the one who would say he would put me in the game.”

If he remembers when he first played professionally: “You don’t notice it at that moment, especially since I played with both the national team and Panathinaikos back then. At Panathinaikos I was 17 years old, I sat on the bench like a fan watching the game. Orestis then gets the red one card and I didn’t understand that I had to go in, I sat on the bench and watched and the goalkeeper coach comes and says, “Get up, you go in.” I became like a cloth, white. You don’t notice, then you understand you what is happening and unfortunately you are not even experiencing it at this moment.

As for the national team, it’s a very funny story. My first game was a friendly against Romania, and I was there when I was 17. We had Fernando Santos back then and he was painting in the dressing room. And it was me, Jorvas and Halkias, but Halkias was ill and I stayed with Jorvas. So I’m like “okay no way”, it didn’t even cross my mind, I thought they would have told me if I played. And Santos takes the tablet and says the names. I sit and don’t see the names and across from me was Torosidis and he gave me meanings and I look and I see Kapino. There, not “my legs were cut off” but I have a picture from warming up, I must have been half passed out”.

On the importance of the goalkeeping coach: “The most important thing for a goalkeeper is to have good chemistry with the goalkeeping coach. For example, a training session can last an hour and 20 minutes and you work one hour with the goalkeeping coach and 20 minutes with the rest of the team. So you understand that that chemistry is very important, the analyzes he’s going to do, the way he talks to you when you make a mistake or after a good game. It’s important, that’s why a lot of goalkeepers take the coach they had in their good career with them when they transfer. That’s the be-all and end-all for me.”

Whether he thinks of a return to Greece: “I haven’t ruled out a return. I’ve played in both big teams, Olympiakos and Panathinaikos, so I would hardly go back to either of them. It’s not in my plans to go back to Greece. Everything is much better abroad than in Greece, but there are other parameters in life that count, it’s your family, it’s your life, your friends, some things you miss when you’ve been away for too many years.”

On the subject of mental health and how hard it is for a footballer to deal with all the pressure: “With the pace we are all living at right now and with everything that has happened in the world over the last ten years, I think everyone needs help. In terms of the football part, it’s definitely a sport where someone’s going to say, ‘come on, he’s getting millions, what does he need for that?’. There’s pressure, I’m not saying ‘what are we poor footballers going through’. , but there is pressure, for example when I was a 21-year-old boy and I had to make a decision about my career and I went from Panathinaikos to Olympiakos and what happened then, I’m not going to play the victim but it was definitely too difficult for me and I definitely needed help as well.

And fortunately I found someone, my psychologist, with whom we then stayed in daily contact and who is trying to put his life in order. When someone else was a 21-year-old college student, I had to put up with not being able to go out in a certain neighborhood, I had to walk from there to avoid being cursed to pay attention to what I do when I enter the field and these are 21-22 year old things no one can handle. You also have to be lucky to find someone who understands you who you fit in with so you can progress and get better in your life because it’s more important than football. Let’s play football until we’re 35-36 and then we have a life to live and that’s the hardest part.”

On the fact that he’s more active on social media now and whether being abroad played a role: “First of all, you have to come to terms with yourself. That said, once I realized what was going on, I stopped thinking about what they were going to say. Unfortunately I don’t think it’s easy to do that in Greece. First of all.” Above all, the other person doesn’t have to be Greek and he doesn’t care. And the biggest difference I’ve seen abroad is that, for example, I went there as a Greek or the Italian, the Spanish, the German are always at the top.

You have to be at least 1-2 levels up to get there. In Greece, on the other hand, every foreigner comes and again you have to be 2 levels higher to reach him. So the Greek footballer will automatically say that I must be right in everything, I must not escape at all, social media does not even think about it because when he knows he will be the one who will be judged, no matter what happens, the first to cry, he’s the first to eat up all the pressure. Because honestly, who wouldn’t want to come to Greece, stay in Greece, live and play football? But we couldn’t do that.”

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