Jan Joost van Gangelen has long suffered from the meeting with Graziano Pellè in March 2014. The then Feyenoord striker told the presenter and reporter after the home game that he has an ‘Ajax head’. Van Gangelen tells in an interview with it Algemeen Dagblad that he still has to think about where to park his car at De Kuip.
After the 1-2 defeat against Ajax, Van Gangelen told Pellè that the mentality seemed to be lacking at Feyenoord. When the reporter continued, the Italian striker asked him which club he is for. Van Gangelen said that he does not support any club, to which Pellè responded: “I think you are for Ajax. You have the face of an Ajax supporter. ”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnkFfPUxf5o
“Long”, answers Van Gangelen when asked whether the interview with Pellè bothered him for a long time. “I’m honest about that. Until that one interview, I always sat in De Kuip on an old plastic chair next to Carlo de Leeuw (the material man of Feyenoord, who passed away last year, ed.), Right next to the field. Nothing to worry about. Never. When I walked past those fanatical Feyenoorders on the bottom rows, Josie did this and Josie that. Since then it has really changed. I still have to think about where I park my car at De Kuip. Those kinds of stupid things. ”
“While I really like to be with people, certainly among Rotterdammers. Wonderful people. I come from a mixed family: my father came from Delft, a real Feyenoord area, and my mother is from Amsterdam. It has calmed down somewhat, the worst social media curses are behind us. But I have been stuck with it. I can be very tough about that now, but it just wasn’t fun ”, Van Gangelen continues. He states that you naturally get an elephant skin because of the ‘club-related emotions’ in football.
“I am really used to something by now. But my skin is not as thick as, say, Kenneth Pérez, who just laughs at the biggest idiots who are after him on Twitter. I refuse to consider death threats and all kinds of texts about my children normal, ”says the reporter and presenter of ESPN. He also quotes people like Özcan Akyol or Sander Schimmelpenninck, who express their views in the ‘political and social domain’. “The mud that comes over you is not normal. I wouldn’t like that. ”