Edwin van der Sar has said Ben Foster will have to wait to become Manchester United's first-choice goalkeeper. Sir Alex Ferguson has made no secret of his belief that Foster is the best home-grown keeper in the country and that this should be his breakthrough season.
However, the 38-year-old Dutchman, whose contract expires in 11 months' time, says he intends to play as often as possible. Given that Fabio Capello would be reluctant to place his faith in anyone who is not first choice for his club, forcing aside a goalkeeper who has won the Champions League twice will be difficult if Foster is to become England's goalkeeper during the World Cup.
"I do expect a bigger challenge from Foster, I think that has been the case for the last couple of years," said Van der Sar, who last season kept a record 14 consecutive Premier League clean sheets. "The manager has now gone public and explained that as well. He is planning to give Ben more games and I think that's normal because you have to look to the future. But I intend to play as often as I can.
"I don't know if this will be my last season. As far as making a decision, I'm going to see how the season goes. It's always hard the moment you decide to stop playing. It doesn't matter if you're at a small club or a big club, it's the end of your playing career, so that's always going to be a big moment for any player."
Van der Sar and Foster played a half each in Manchester United's 8-2 demolition of Hangzhou Greentown that featured Ryan Giggs's first hat-trick since he was a junior footballer and two goals from Michael Owen. Greentown's goals were conceded by Foster but only when the Chinese side were trailing 7-0 and 8-1 respectively.
Van der Sar, who will almost certainly be Ferguson's first choice when United's season opens against Birmingham City next month, said the first task the club faced was to get rid of the aftertaste of their deflating performance against Barcelona in the European Cup final.
"A few days after the final I was in Spain for a wedding, which was obviously not the ideal place to be after losing to Barcelona in the final," he said. "But we deserved to lose. We were not good enough and we weren't ready for them after 10 minutes.
"It is nice to say that losing like we did should give you more motivation the next time around but I don't think it works like that. You have to get your motivation from within and it doesn't matter if you lose in the quarters, the semis or the final. You must want to have another chance of winning the trophy."
