Marc-Andre ter Stegen: I am not like Victor Valdes and didn't want to be

Marc-André ter Stegen has an interview out in the new edition of Panenka magazine. The Barcelona goalkeeper spoke about various aspects of his life since joining the Catalan giants.

MODERN KEEPER

"What seems modern is to have good play with your feet, to always be alert behind the defensive line, if there's a ball that drops behind them and you have to anticipate it. But Barca, for many years, since the Victor Valdes era, always had a goalkeeper brave with his feet who helped the team.

"I am not like Valdes and I didn't want to be," said Ter Stegen, whose reference point was Oliver Kahn. "Our style is different but I focused on him for his mentality."

FIT THE TEAM

"There are goalkeepers who fit their style perfectly, like Ederson and Bravo at City. Or others like Buffon who are good where they are. But if you changed them, if I were to play at Juve and Buffon at Barca, maybe I would not be who I am now."

"We have a coach who has seen us from outside. When he was at Athletic he always pressured us in one way or another and we suffered a lot at his ground. Now we have a coach who knows exactly what we have done up to now. This year we have improved defensively, it was obvious we had to be closer together."

THE BIGGEST GOAL

On Andoni Zubizarreta, the former sporting director who brought him to Barca, he said: "I liked that he wanted to meet me in person. He told me interesting things, the style, the mentality, the culture of the club. And that the Barca goal seems bigger than it is.

"I wanted to be the No 1 here. And when I found out it would be Bravo, it was complicated. He was an international, he'd won titles, he had more experience."