“I feel good about myself. At the moment, the results in Basel are not what we wanted, but things are still going well on a personal level. Being called up again is a great honour,” Van Breemen says proudly.
“It’s starting to take some getting used to, I have to be honest. I still remember being impressed the first time and sitting down with my dad and saying: ‘We just did it’. Now he’s texting: ‘I’m there again’, haha. When I finally get on the plane, I have that feeling of ‘yes, I’m back.’ It remains special.”
Van Bremen gains the trust of national coach Michael Reisiger. “I’ve had conversations with the coach about what he thinks of me. That’s given me some peace. Then there’s always the question of how I’ll perform at my club. As long as I keep doing my job and working hard, I think I’ll be there, but I can’t take that for granted.” .
We play in a system that the coach and the other players know, but I was not there in the first period. You have very good players around you here, so you are very in control during the match. FC Basel is also a dominant team. It’s less now, but I’m used to playing compact and working hard defensively. I usually find the solution myself by dribbling or passing a long ball. Here the centre-backs are close together. Short game. High pace of the ball. I had to get used to it and it’s much better now. He told me that I had made progress recently and that he was very happy about that. I was allowed to play the entire second half of that last game against Gibraltar (0-5). “These are things that show that he trusts me and that gives me confidence.”
Despite his club’s disappointing results, Van Breemen is playing a lot and standing out. The defender does not think this will affect whether he is selected or not. “I think it’s purely individual. They monitor everything well here, so they follow my matches as well. In the matches I play in Basel, I reach my level personally. I don’t think it has a big impact. You can also see that in the Netherlands, where he faces… “Ajax has had a difficult time in the Eredivisie. Three boys from Ajax were also selected.”
