Column | As a person – NRC

The highlight yesterday in the Johan Cruijff Arena did not take place during, but after Ajax-FC Twente. Or actually there were two wonderfully memorable moments, because let’s not forget the pist of fist with which Wout Weghorst ended a shot of a cameraman. « I didn’t feel like a zoomed camera, » said the striker from Borne.

Does he have a disorder? Is Wout Weghorst a narcissist? And if so, what is Willem Vissers then? Because the other highlight took place in the Ajax press room where Francesco Farioli finished his last press conference as Ajax trainer. When Willem Vissers van de Volkskrant To ask the Italian trainer/philosopher, he said – he said – freely translated from English – that he, Willem Vissers, had not always liked Ajax’s football last season to watch, but that he wanted to thank Trainer FAROLI for who he is. And he wanted to leave it at that.

First thought of seeing the images: is the press stopune of Ajax nowadays in the sun and Willem Vissers didn’t have a cap during the game? Is he going to compliment people openly at press conferences because he thinks they are a good person?

The emotions in the face of Francesco Farioli finished this unreal situation.

Understandable of course, you don’t get a compliment from Willem Vissers every day. And then also a compliment from another order. Willem Vissers lifted Francesco Farioli above all other trainers, and Willem knows quite a bit. In fact, he said that Francesco Farioli was a better person than all those others, a bright spot in the football jungle. After that, an unreal silence fell, I assume that the rest of the journalists on the back of their pens chewed, banging because they also wanted to say something like Francesco Farioli. You saw them with retroactive effect on all those professional encounters with fine people they only missed after they left.

And so it was Willem Vissers again who adds a new dimension to sports journalism. Next year Ajax will probably have a new trainer, Willem Vissers has already written that in so many words in his newspaper and we can assume the knowledge of today that he has an excellent source. I don’t care how this trainer performs, but I am already curious about the opinion of Willem Vissers after another football season. Does he scratch his throat again to praise him in public? Or is he silent as he has done so often, so we know enough.

A good trainer, but Willem didn’t think it was a special person.

Marcel van Roosmalen Writes a column on Monday and Thursday.

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