Teenage keeper Tim Krul spoke of his debut delight after Newcastle's win in Italy.
Newcastle's teenage keeper Tim Krul spoke of his debut delight after his impressive performance helped The Magpies to record a 1-0 win in Palermo.The young Dutchman was called upon by Glenn Roeder due to injuries to Shay Given and Steve Harper, and excelled himself in Sicily with a number of important saves.
Prime amongst them was his diving stop to deny Giuseppe Bavia's strong header in the second half, and after the final whistle Krul was revelling in his stunning first display in a Newcastle shirt.
"It's unbelievable, and a clean sheet as well, my voice is gone but yeah, unbelievable," Krul told Five.
"It was a great effort from the tall guy [Bavia] and I got up and threw my body in the way and saved it.
"This morning we had a walk and the coach came to me and said 'How do you feel?'.
"I said 'Great' and he said 'You are starting tonight' and I said 'That's unbelievable', that is what we are doing it for."
Krul overcame a nervy opening ten minutes to grow in stature as Newcastle took control of Group H, and the former ADO Den Haag starlet revealed that his injured goalkeeping colleagues congratulated him on his display following the superb result against a team currently joint top of Serie A.
"At the beginning you come here and think okay it's new but after a couple of minutes you think you can do it," Krul added.
"If you see how we get on with each other and everything it is great, and he [Harper] came to me and said 'Unbelievable mate, unbelievable'."
Magpies stopper Craig Moore was also glowing with praise for his young team-mate, with the Australian international also highlighting the importance of the three points against an accomplished Italian outfit.
"Yeah away from home, obviously Palermo are a very good side, and we've come away and we have got a result," said Moore.
"I think we deserved it, obviously we were under pressure in the second half and young Tim has come in and made some fantastic saves.
"I thought it was a good performance.
"We knew that in the first 15 or 20 minutes they were going to put us under a lot of pressure and that was the case, we were lucky that we weathered the storm and especially in the first half we came into the game well and created a few chances.
"There was one save in particular in the second half, diving to his left, I think, that was a fantastic save and it gave everyone a lift and that gives us belief that we could go on and get a result."
