Group match #2 for Germany’s Number One. Against Portugal, Manuel Neuer showed his class, and when his team meet the Netherlands in Kharkiv on Wednesday, his qualities are likely to be in demand once again – a special match for Neuer, for a variety of reasons. Read this interview with DFB.de’s Steffen Lüdeke about Manuel’s ties to Germany’s neighbours and his take on "modern" goalkeeping.
team.dfb.de: Manuel, the second part of the French Open final is under way as we speak. You’re a great tennis fan yourself. Who do you keep your fingers crossed for, Rafael Nadal or Novak Djokovic?
Manuel Neuer: Djokovic, actually. I quite like the way he plays and how he presents himself off the court.
team.dfb.de: You used to be tennis player yourself. What was your style? Like Djokovic, with a powerful drive and attack on your mind? Or like Nadal?
Neuer: Neither of them are defensive players. True, Rafa is essentially a base-liner and doesn’t often come up to the net, but he knows how to dominate a match. The difference between the two is that perhaps there’s a little more variation to Djokovic’s game.
team.dfb.de: You dropped tennis at the age of fourteen – a difficult decision to take?
Neuer: Absolutely, but the dual burden of football and tennis was simply getting too much: on weekday afternoons, I went to two trainings, first football, then tennis, and on weekends I played football in the morning and turned up late for tennis later in the day, so I could only play doubles. It was getting too difficult to reconcile the two, so eventually I made the cut.
team.dfb.de: Was this a conscious kind of career move? Because you had a feeling that football would get you further?
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Group match #2 for Germany’s Number One. Against Portugal, Manuel Neuer showed his class, and when his team meet the Netherlands in Kharkiv on Wednesday, his qualities are likely to be in demand once again – a special match for Neuer, for a variety of reasons. Read this interview with DFB.de’s Steffen Lüdeke about Manuel’s ties to Germany’s neighbours and his take on "modern" goalkeeping.
team.dfb.de: Manuel, the second part of the French Open final is under way as we speak. You’re a great tennis fan yourself. Who do you keep your fingers crossed for, Rafael Nadal or Novak Djokovic?
Manuel Neuer: Djokovic, actually. I quite like the way he plays and how he presents himself off the court.
team.dfb.de: You used to be tennis player yourself. What was your style? Like Djokovic, with a powerful drive and attack on your mind? Or like Nadal?
Neuer: Neither of them are defensive players. True, Rafa is essentially a base-liner and doesn’t often come up to the net, but he knows how to dominate a match. The difference between the two is that perhaps there’s a little more variation to Djokovic’s game.
team.dfb.de: You dropped tennis at the age of fourteen – a difficult decision to take?
Neuer: Absolutely, but the dual burden of football and tennis was simply getting too much: on weekday afternoons, I went to two trainings, first football, then tennis, and on weekends I played football in the morning and turned up late for tennis later in the day, so I could only play doubles. It was getting too difficult to reconcile the two, so eventually I made the cut.
team.dfb.de: Was this a conscious kind of career move? Because you had a feeling that football would get you further?
Neuer: Calling it a "career move" would be taking it too far. It was just that sport was getting in the way of school, which I definitely didn’t mind as much as my parents did (laughs). They told me it was better for me to drop tennis. At the time I resented that, but today I’m grateful they made me do it.
team.dfb.de: Do you sometimes miss playing tennis?
Neuer: Oh, I do play once in a while, with friends or team-mates.
team.dfb.de: Any serious opponent?
Neuer: Oliver Bierhoff is said to be quite good, Andreas Köpke knows what a racket and ball are for, and Philipp Lahm is quite a good player.
team.dfb.de: From tennis to football. You became a goalkeeper, and quite a good one at that! You just need to read the papers after the Portugal match…
Neuer: I know how to rate my own performances. And anyway, what really counts for me is what my coaches and goalkeeper coaches tell me, not articles in the press. We analyse matches together, discussing whether I could or should have done things differently in given situations, whether I did or didn’t make the right choices. In the game against Portugal, I was not constantly tested…
team.dfb.de: Yes, but Ronaldo’s shot at goal in the 81st minute was not easy to stop, was it?
Neuer: Correct, but before that there were some pretty difficult set-pieces, where I had a hard time getting a hand to the ball, or swerved-in corner-kicks I could only fist away. Ronaldo’s was actually the first “real” shot at goal. It’s not easy for a keeper to have to wait so long for the first tricky ball.
team.dfb.de: In the 87th minute, Silvestre Varela appeared unmarked in front of goal - how hard was it to stop him from scoring?
Neuer: The hardest thing was that the situation should have been defused much earlier; I mean Ronaldo was lucky to be given a chance to lay that ball back at all. But as a goalie you’ve got to expect the unexpected, and I automatically tried to narrow down the angle, forcing Varela wide. His shot went where it really hurts – but that did not matter to me. The ball didn’t go in, full stop.
team.dfb.de: Would you say this is one of the things you had to get used to at FC Bayern – only rarely being in the thick of things but still having to concentrate 100 percent at all times?
Neuer: Yes, I really had to get used to that. While there had been matches like that with Schalke or with the national team, in my pre-Munich days there were very few occasions where I had practically nothing to do! In the first half of the Bundesliga season, for example, there were a great number of matches where I didn’t have to intervene at all until very late in the game.
team.dfb.de: In a nutshell – anybody can do great saves, but real class…
Neuer: I’d rather continue this phrase by saying ‘but the real challenge is for a goalkeeper to keep a clean sheet even if for 89 minutes you’ve had nothing to do.’ Believe it or not, I prefer it that way, ‘cause this means your own team dominates play big-time, doesn’t it?
team.dfb.de: Comparing the situation now with your first World Cup match in South Africa against Australia – has anything changed for you?
Neuer: Personally, I don’t think I’ve changed. What has is my status, my internal standing if you like. What I say carries more weight now, that’s the greatest difference. As far as my goalkeeping is concerned, I keep trying to project confidence and security and, if possible, assist with build-up play by speeding things up.
team.dfb.de: Do you keep an eye on how and where your team-mates are positioned, where on the pitch Germany might be numerically superior? For example, if the opposition take a corner, are you checking where our own strikers or midfielders are?
Neuer: There is no cut-and-dried answer to that question. In some situations I just know that a quick, long throw just won’t be called for, so all I do is concentrate on catching or parrying the ball. Having said that, the qualifying match against Turkey was a wonderful counter-example: from the corner of my eye I saw that their left-back was standing so out of position that I just had to throw the ball to Thomas Müller who was hovering up front. From there to Mario Gomez scoring was a matter of seconds. As a goalkeeper I always think about developing the game further. But the key thought will always be to have the ball and secure it. That’s my prime obligation, everything else is just a nice-to-have item.
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team.dfb.de: How do you think will "modern" goalkeeping look like in 30 years’ time?
Neuer: I don’t think there will be any far-reaching changes at all. We might see keepers moving even further up-field, say 25-30 meters away from goal, to receive and distribute balls, just as I do sometimes. But I don’t think we’ll ever be some kind of 11th field player, dribbling or getting involved in offensive play.
team.dfb.de: Let’s preview Wednesday’s match against the Netherlands. You have special ties to our neighbours, haven’t you?
Neuer: Yes, I grew up in Gelsenkirchen-Buer, in the heart of (the German federal state of) North-Rhine-Westphalia, so we didn’t have far to drive to the Dutch border. In fact, quite often we went there on holiday, to the island of Ameland for example, which was a popular destination for our parish youth group. Sun and sand, lots of football, three weeks of bliss! But talking of ties to the Netherlands, don’t forget the Dutch team-mates I’ve had – quite a lot of them at Schalke, and now of course there’s Arjen Robben at FC Bayern.
team.dfb.de: Your fan’s take on the sporting rivalry between the two neighbouring nations?
Neuer: I can still remember playing in an Under-16 youth exhibition match in the Schalke Parkstadion just before a Germany vs. Netherlands international. And it became apparent to me that for players and fans on either side, such matches are something special.
team.dfb.de: Tell us something about Manuel Neuer the supporter. Back then, were you true to your level-headed self or rather the hot-blooded type?
Neuer: The former, to be honest. But the beauty of it is, football supporters are one of a kind, no matter whether you’ve got a degree or have barely made it to C-levels, are rich or poor, young or old. It’s a world with no hierarchies, where social status doesn’t mean anything. But I wasn’t much of ring leader or anything whipping up the crowd, I just went with the flow.
team.dfb.de: The Netherlands have a superb attacking force, with Robbie van Persie and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar top scorers in their respective leagues –are you looking forward to what promises to be a special challenge?
Neuer: Sure, we are fully aware of that, but that apart, I’m just looking forward to meeting the Dutch in a tournament context.
