What followed was a six-week crash course that summer, since when Durm has not budged from his fast track to success on the left flank. He still has his feet planted firmly on the ground despite his meteoric rise; when his second UEFA Champions League appearance prompted observers to wonder if they had found the next Philipp Lahm, Durm merely took note of the resulting hype and said he "didn’t let himself get carried away."
Nevertheless, Jürgen Klopp chose this moment to dispense with his self-imposed restraint about BVB’s new star: "You could say that Erik Durm is made for the Champions League. The lad has only played four or five Bundesliga matches but has already played twice in Europe. He’s an exceptionally talented player."
Whatever lies ahead, Durm will always be a player who made just five full Champions League appearances before boarding the plane to Brazil – and returned to Germany a world champion.
It all started with a fleeting two-minute debut in Augsburg, with Borussia Dortmund already leading 4-0. Almost exactly a year has passed since then. It was a year that ended with Erik Durm enjoying World Cup success with Germany, not as a fan, but as a player; a year in which the 22-year-old has ridden the elevator all the way to the top of the world.
When BVB host Bayer Leverkusen in the first major clash of the new Bundesliga season on Saturday evening (live on Sky from 18:30 CET), Erik Durm is almost certain to feature in the starting line-up despite missing many of this week’s training sessions with a cold, as his rival for the left-back berth, Marcel Schmelzer, has again been sidelined with a muscle tear. In contrast, Durm is in good form once more, as he impressively demonstrated after being introduced as a substitute during the Super Cup final against Bayern Munich. Dortmund’s rising star of last season has lost little of his momentum during a short summer break.
From 'Newcomer of the Season' to World Cup winner
Durm clocked 1,386 minutes of playing time in 19 appearances during a debut season in Germany’s top flight in which he faced Arjen Robben and Franck Ribéry in the Bundesliga before holding his own against Real Madrid’s Gareth Bale and Angel di Maria in the Champions League. His efforts were rewarded with an international debut against Cameroon shortly before this summer’s World Cup in Brazil.
He jumped on board the World Cup bandwagon and ended up at Rio de Janeiro’s legendary Maracanã on 13 July 2014, immortalised in images he will cherish for the rest of his life. To top it all off, the 22-year-old was awarded a 'Golden K' in the newcomer category in sports magazine kicker’s prestigious poll. More than 100,000 readers voted to determine German football’s most promising young talent – and they were not wrong.
"Marcel is also a role model for me"
In conversation, Erik Durm is still refreshingly unpolished. He comes across as guarded but engaging at the same time, an increasingly rare combination in this sport. You believe his regret that his own nomination to the final World Cup squad came at the expense of the stricken Marcel Schmelzer, and understand completely when he says: "It’s a shame Marcel didn’t come with us. He’s been a big help to me, even in training at Dortmund. In a way, Marcel is also a role model for me. It would have been great to have him there."
It goes without saying that Durm has benefited from Schmelzer’s injury misfortunes, having only moved from 1. FSV Mainz’s youth team to BVB in 2012 before playing in the U-23 side as planned during his first year with the club. Each enforced absence for Schmelzer gradually introduced the 22-year-old Durm to the rigours of first-team football, allowing him to prove himself and steadily improve. This is no bad thing. In fact, it is entirely normal; after all, football is not the only sport in which injuries to established professionals pave the way for the next generation.
The development is all the better for BVB, who now have two equally strong long-term options at left-back. This should prove useful for the team’s season opener against Bayer Leverkusen, given that coach Jürgen Klopp may have to do without as many as eight first-team players.
Klopp: "He’s an exceptionally talented player"
Klopp invested his trust in the promising youngster eighteen months ago, taking the then fully-fledged centre forward to one side during the spring of 2013. "The coach suggested I try switching to full-back", Erik Durm recalls, "and added that he would, of course, give me time to think about it." The player’s pace, tackling ability and strength, match intelligence, stamina, crossing accuracy and finishing skills all added up for Jürgen Klopp, and Durm himself was not inclined to disagree with his boss. He agreed to give it a try.
What followed was a six-week crash course that summer, since when Durm has not budged from his fast track to success on the left flank. He still has his feet planted firmly on the ground despite his meteoric rise; when his second UEFA Champions League appearance prompted observers to wonder if they had found the next Philipp Lahm, Durm merely took note of the resulting hype and said he "didn’t let himself get carried away."
Nevertheless, Jürgen Klopp chose this moment to dispense with his self-imposed restraint about BVB’s new star: "You could say that Erik Durm is made for the Champions League. The lad has only played four or five Bundesliga matches but has already played twice in Europe. He’s an exceptionally talented player."
Whatever lies ahead, Durm will always be a player who made just five full Champions League appearances before boarding the plane to Brazil – and returned to Germany a world champion.
