Wesley Sneijder believes that Luuk de Jong responded excellently afterwards to Walter Benítez’s gigantic blunder in PSV’s 2-2 draw against Rangers. That is what Sneijder says in the afterthought of the first game in Glasgow on RTL 7. The PSV captain jumped into the breach for Benítez during his interview, who just let a free kick from Tom Lawrence slip through his fingers.
The striker did not want to speak too loudly about Benítez’s blunder. “Walter doesn’t look good there, he knows that. But he has also saved us so many times. He’s a fantastic goalkeeper, and a fantastic boy. He will continue after that and I have every confidence in him,” said De Jong. Benítez was taken by PSV this summer because the Eindhoven club with Joël Drommel and Yvon Mvogo had not been too reliable goalkeepers in recent years.
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A gigantic blunder by PSV goalkeeper Walter Benítez and it is 2-1 for Rangers… ??#ZiggoSport #UCL #RANPSV pic.twitter.com/VgKaucTEaF— Ziggo Sport Football (@ZS_Voetbal) August 16, 2022
Sneijder fully agrees with De Jong’s reaction to the blunder of the Argentine goalkeeper. “I think it’s class from Luuk what he says about Benítez. That you can immediately defend your keeper in front of the cameras. He also knows that he is making a blunder.” Sneijder played at OGC Nice together with Benítez. “He is a good boy and an excellent goalkeeper. These kinds of mistakes can happen to you sometimes, but not too often. We must not forget that he has already saved PSV a number of times. That doesn’t mean you can do this regularly, though.
De Jong still thinks that PSV can look back with satisfaction on the game in Scotland. “Given the game, we can be happy with the result. You are 2-1 behind and then you try to fight to get a good result. Or do we leave it alone? Well, I think the match went up and down a bit. They started a little better, then we took over and played a little better again. In the second half we started well and put pressure on them, but we came behind from that free kick. Then we had to search, but luckily Obi (spo, ed.) scores from a corner and then you go to Eindhoven with a good result.”
De Jong saw certain situations that give him a lot of confidence in the return next week. “We wanted to leave at least with a draw after the 2-1. I think you could also see that in our team, that we wanted that. We have to be tactically good next week. They could find the free man between the lines, and therefore continue to play football. In the second half we put more pressure and they came out more difficult. Those are things that we have to analyze well together. I think if we are strong and stay calm on the ball, we will have good chances next week.”