When you stand beside the Delhi Dynamos FC goalkeeper Kristof Van Hout you tend to feel intimidated. But when you sit down with the 6’10” shotstopper, you realise he’s anything but intimidating. In fact, he’s positively friendly. Van Hout wore a broad smile on his face as he sat down for an exclusive conversation with indiansuperleague.com in Goa.The 27-year old former Genk alumnus wanted to be a goalkeeper from a very young age. “From when I was young I wanted to be a goalkeeper and I like it very much. It’s another part of the football team, but it’s an important position; but then, every position is important,” he opined.The gentle giant did not idolise any goalkeeper while growing up and feels that goalkeepers of every generation have different styles. “Goalkeepers from 10 years ago and today are markedly different. The evolution has been dramatic. Everyone now talks about guys like (Manuel) Neuer, (Iker) Casillas and (Thibaut) Courtois. It is difficult to compare them because these guys have different styles as compared to keepers who played when I was a kid.“Neuer is spectacular in a way because he rushes off his line ever so often to thwart an attack. The American goalie, Tim Howard, showed his quality in the World Cup. He doesn’t come off his line like some European keepers do. He relies more on his reflexes and shot stopping ability. It’s not bad, but they’re two contrasting yet equally effective styles,” he explained.The Belgian also praised FC Barcelona’s young German signing, Marc-André ter Stegen, as someone with great potential. Arsenal keeper Wojciech Szczęsny also received a glowing report from the Belgian as a reflexive shot stopper, even though the Polish custodian is prone to silly errors.Van Hout currently is the leader in the race for the Golden Glove award, having pulled off a whopping 27 saves and kept three clean sheets. He is impressed with the heroics of Indian goalkeepers like Subhasish Roy Chowdhury (Atlético de Kolkata) and Rehenesh TP (NorthEast United FC) in the Hero Indian Super League, but informs that his team’s reserve goalkeeper Jagroop Singh has huge promise. “Jagroop has been fantastic in training. I can’t really speak about the other guys much because I’ve watched just a couple of games. It’s easier for me to talk about Jagroop since we work together every day. We have goalkeeper training for almost 45 minutes every day and I think he’s already improved tremendously. He’s learned a lot,” Van Hout affirmed.Van Hout doesn’t consider his size an intimidating factor on the pitch, claiming that he tries to use it to do his job effectively. The Belgian says he still learns a lot every day and strives to improve. In his opinion, “the day you think that you can’t improve further, you need to stop playing football”.Sharing a dressing room with a legend like Alessandro Del Piero is a matter of joy and pride for any player, Van Hout included. “This guy has won everything that you can win on a football pitch. I have a lot of respect for him. I know and he knows that he’s now part of this team and we’re very happy that he’s with us. We try to do things as well as possible, much like he does, and we try to keep to that standard,” he said.Van Hout thinks the highly competitive ISL will hugely benefit Indian players and it has garnered huge international and local interest. “Yes, for sure, it’s a huge event. There are a lot of people watching the games on TV and in the stadiums. There’s a lot going on in the newspapers. People want to read about the sport. It’s very important to do this and to improve Indian football,” he stated.Van Hout says that the Dynamos go out with the intention of winning every match and they want to win the inaugural tournament. “You can probably see that in the way we play. There are seven other teams there wanting to beat us and it’s the same with us. Our focus is just on winning,” he reiterated.
