Sometimes you can describe a player's state of mind in just a few words. Regarding Dortmund and their fans, a number will do: 17. What lies behind Dortmund is a first half of the season in which everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong. Fortune only favoured Dortmund on one occasion when Gladbach’s Christoph Kramer scored an own goal with a back pass from the half-way line. All together, Dortmund picked up 15 points and are shockingly in 17th place after 17 games.
The therapy, which Jürgen Klopp prescribed his team, can be described as voluntary amnesia: Six months and 17 matches should be deleted from memory and you should only be concentrating on the second half of the season. “We have to stop looking back at the first half of the season at some point,” said Klopp.
And his players agree with him. “It would be a mistake to think about the past,” said Roman Weidenfeller, for example, in Die Bild. “We are now in 2015 and shouldn’t concern ourselves with 2014 anymore.” Not thinking about 2014 would mean deleting the World Cup from his memory and he of course won’t do that. What it means precisely is not dealing with what has happened since the team's first Bundesliga game in the 2014/2015 season, and not dealing with what has happened to the Dortmund and World Cup winning goalkeeper since the triumph in the Maracana.
Weidenfeller about the World Cup triumph: “Collective success was huge”
What the goalkeeper remembers is therefore prior to the first match of the 2013/2014 season and that has the wonderful consequence of his gaze into the past beginning on the 13th July 2014. The freshest memory is thus the most beautiful and the goalkeeper can talk about the period up until the 13th July as if the World Cup had just ended yesterday: “I was very happy that I had the opportunity to be in Brazil. There is no greater feeling than bringing the trophy home. I can only say positive things about the national team. The collective success was obviously huge.”
Weidenfeller’s therapy has, however, still led to him remembering fragments of the period after Brazil, so his amnesia is therefore not all encompassing. The Bild-Zeitung’s question regarding whether he sees himself as Dortmund’s number one irritated him a lot before the World Cup. And what about now? Weidenfeller was less irritated than a full memory loss would suggest.
He can of course remember that something happened. Mitch Langerak, the substitute’s bench and a lack of playing: some memories are difficult to suppress. However, Weidenfeller does not believe that the future has to have the same pattern as the past and he therefore said the following about his situation at Dortmund: “I have the number one on the back of my shirt so I’m assuming that I am the number one!”
An individual and a team player
This doesn't have anything to do with not being a team player but rather has more to do with an existing self-confidence . Anyone who saw in Brazil how important Weidenfeller’s position was as back-up to Manuel Neuer can certainly not have any doubts about Weidenfeller being a great individual, when it comes to being a goalkeeper, and an excellent team player when it comes to being a sportsman. It is a testament to both Weidenfeller as a person and Neuer’s qualities in goal that Weidenfeller himself said after the vote for World Footballer of the Year that: “If both Oliver Kahn and Manuel Neuer were close to winning the award but neither of them did, then it is possible that no goalkeeper will ever win it.”
The recent past is behind him and Weidenfeller has clear ideas for the future regarding both Dortmund and also the national team. The goalkeeper wants to go to the European Championships in France and wants to continue the country's success in Paris. “It is in any case my goal to once again be part of the team in 2016,” he said.
And he knows what he needs to do to make that happen; he needs to put in some performances at Dortmund. “A new year has begun and we all want to look forward as a team,” he said. “We have to believe that we can turn a corner as quickly as possible. For us, it is most important that weput a run together so that we can get out of the relegation zone as quickly as possible.” When you look at the table, it doesn’t take long for the bad memories of the first half of the season to find a way into your thoughts.
created by mmc/emd
Sometimes you can describe a player's state of mind in just a few words. Regarding Dortmund and their fans, a number will do: 17. What lies behind Dortmund is a first half of the season in which everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong. Fortune only favoured Dortmund on one occasion when Gladbach’s Christoph Kramer scored an own goal with a back pass from the half-way line. All together, Dortmund picked up 15 points and are shockingly in 17th place after 17 games.
The therapy, which Jürgen Klopp prescribed his team, can be described as voluntary amnesia: Six months and 17 matches should be deleted from memory and you should only be concentrating on the second half of the season. “We have to stop looking back at the first half of the season at some point,” said Klopp.
And his players agree with him. “It would be a mistake to think about the past,” said Roman Weidenfeller, for example, in Die Bild. “We are now in 2015 and shouldn’t concern ourselves with 2014 anymore.” Not thinking about 2014 would mean deleting the World Cup from his memory and he of course won’t do that. What it means precisely is not dealing with what has happened since the team's first Bundesliga game in the 2014/2015 season, and not dealing with what has happened to the Dortmund and World Cup winning goalkeeper since the triumph in the Maracana.
Weidenfeller about the World Cup triumph: “Collective success was huge”
What the goalkeeper remembers is therefore prior to the first match of the 2013/2014 season and that has the wonderful consequence of his gaze into the past beginning on the 13th July 2014. The freshest memory is thus the most beautiful and the goalkeeper can talk about the period up until the 13th July as if the World Cup had just ended yesterday: “I was very happy that I had the opportunity to be in Brazil. There is no greater feeling than bringing the trophy home. I can only say positive things about the national team. The collective success was obviously huge.”
Weidenfeller’s therapy has, however, still led to him remembering fragments of the period after Brazil, so his amnesia is therefore not all encompassing. The Bild-Zeitung’s question regarding whether he sees himself as Dortmund’s number one irritated him a lot before the World Cup. And what about now? Weidenfeller was less irritated than a full memory loss would suggest.
He can of course remember that something happened. Mitch Langerak, the substitute’s bench and a lack of playing: some memories are difficult to suppress. However, Weidenfeller does not believe that the future has to have the same pattern as the past and he therefore said the following about his situation at Dortmund: “I have the number one on the back of my shirt so I’m assuming that I am the number one!”
An individual and a team player
This doesn't have anything to do with not being a team player but rather has more to do with an existing self-confidence . Anyone who saw in Brazil how important Weidenfeller’s position was as back-up to Manuel Neuer can certainly not have any doubts about Weidenfeller being a great individual, when it comes to being a goalkeeper, and an excellent team player when it comes to being a sportsman. It is a testament to both Weidenfeller as a person and Neuer’s qualities in goal that Weidenfeller himself said after the vote for World Footballer of the Year that: “If both Oliver Kahn and Manuel Neuer were close to winning the award but neither of them did, then it is possible that no goalkeeper will ever win it.”
The recent past is behind him and Weidenfeller has clear ideas for the future regarding both Dortmund and also the national team. The goalkeeper wants to go to the European Championships in France and wants to continue the country's success in Paris. “It is in any case my goal to once again be part of the team in 2016,” he said.
And he knows what he needs to do to make that happen; he needs to put in some performances at Dortmund. “A new year has begun and we all want to look forward as a team,” he said. “We have to believe that we can turn a corner as quickly as possible. For us, it is most important that weput a run together so that we can get out of the relegation zone as quickly as possible.” When you look at the table, it doesn’t take long for the bad memories of the first half of the season to find a way into your thoughts.
