Column | The difficult path to the fifth star

I shouldn't really have to introduce myself, but I'll do it in this case anyway. Better safe than sorry. I am the national team. Your national team. The selection of the best football players who can play for Germany. Basically, I want to make you proud. Even more than that. I want you to be happy when I make my appearances. Unfortunately, there aren't that many, because the leagues in many countries constantly get in the way. It's not just the Bundesliga. My chosen ones are spread across Europe. Italy, Spain. That sometimes makes things difficult for my boss Julian Nagelsmann, still a youngster, which is something I still have to get used to. He should, he has to always observe everyone, classify them, and use them perfectly according to his ideas so that I can perform to your satisfaction. I admit: I'm sensitive, and of course I notice that you've been picking on me a bit lately. I can't please everyone right now, especially not all the self-appointed critics who even got my jersey once. Now they act as if they knew all the football wisdom.

And yet – and this makes me laugh inside – they did a lot of crap back then. And when they coached teams after their playing days with me, even colleagues of mine, it was never successful. But their past has become less of a concern over the years. Luckily for them. No matter. I can get over that, and also over the strange headlines in the current press. I study the newspapers and magazines, of course. As a national team player, I have to be informed about what people think of me at the moment. I read that I'm well on my way to the World Cup. That makes me happy, of course, because at that moment I believe I've done a lot of things right. But then the sentence that I'm not in World Cup shape yet appears in the addendum.

What is the World Cup form? I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that, of course. Perhaps they expected me to deliver a goal fest against Luxembourg. Are four goals still not enough? Do you really think the lads on the other side were all mere scoundrels? And they said I didn't play convincingly against Northern Ireland. Just set pieces and the like. As if that weren't important. But did you also notice that this game was like a boxing match. A constant in-fight. Taking and dishing out. It's difficult to create clever, beautiful, and successful combinations in that situation. But of course I also know that you almost always expect an out-of-this-world performance from me. And I can understand why, you're probably always thinking about July 8, 2014, when I razed the Brazilians to their core, winning 7-1. They still haven't recovered from that, but I also went through some difficult times after that. My "Jogi" simply refused to quit, even though I had already noticed that after the World Cup in Brazil, the fire was only burning on the back burner. Then "Hansi" came along. Unfortunately, that was ultimately just a patchwork fix.

Nick Woltemade is Germany's attacking hope. © APA/afp / PAUL FAITH

But it's also incredibly difficult for me. For example, I can't make myself available every day to practice. I often only have a few days in which I'm supposed to build a team spirit, even though the guys may have been at odds with each other on a daily basis beforehand. So, by then, my back is usually against the wall, and an entire country is racking its brains over how I'm feeling. To be honest, it's not leaving me unscathed. On top of that, I'm constantly confronted with new personnel. And the mourning period after the departure of Thomas Müller or Manuel Neuer isn't even over yet. It's just not that easy. Amiri and Adeyemi and Woltemade and Pavlovic and Atubolu and Beier and so on. My new boss is really poaching in the league. When, contrary to expectations, things don't go according to plan, it's me, of course, who suffers. Sometimes, when I'm feeling a little gloomy, I think of the good old days when I was at the service of an emperor. But of course, I also notice that the world of football has changed. My Franz could still take a few steps with the ball at his feet. The opponents watched with respect. Or Overath? He could calmly look down into the valley like a mountaineer, where he wanted to pass the ball. Nobody bothered him.

Those were truly comfortable days for me. Now I have to adjust, because the peace and quiet is over. Sometimes I even have the feeling that, apart from the goalkeeper, everyone has a personal opponent who bothers my boys even when they receive the ball. "Pressing" is what the experts call it, and lately they've been playing against the ball instead of with the ball. I have to understand that first. The constant substitutions and substitutions also confuse me sometimes. To be honest, I used to love the fact that I often knew weeks before a game who was being recommended to me. That was something. But I don't want to complain all the time. Other people do that all the time. I can only promise that I will work on myself so that I can be in the best possible shape for the occasion, that is, the World Cup next year (I'll qualify, of course). Finally, I'd like to point out that a lot of what I do depends on the opponent. And I freely admit that I, too, can have a slump now and then, like the rest of us. But if the result is still okay, then at least a bad game turns into a good one. And everyone is happy. Finally.

About the author: Sigi Heinrich The award-winning sports journalist (including the German Television Award, the Bavarian Sports Award, and a nominee for the prestigious Grimme Prize), sports teacher, author, longtime sports editor of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, and commentator for Eurosport since 1989, devotes his weekly column to the entire spectrum of sports and enjoys exploring unfamiliar territory. Sometimes with a smile, sometimes thoughtfully, or deliberately provocatively. There should be something for everyone.

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Column | The difficult path to the fifth star

Our columnist Sigi Heinrich has taken an unusual approach to the German national team with an open letter, revealing their concerns and needs. They are particularly annoyed by the many critics who once played for them.

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