My Excursion thro Cultures

I am one of the youngest players in the German team. I captained our gold winning Junior World Cup team. Then I was promoted to senior ranks, and got ‘German Player of the Year in 2009’.

After the gold we got at Singapore in the Junior World Cup, I was used more and more in the German senior team and had to fill the footsteps of some of the German greats who retired in the past few years. They include stalwart defender Philipp Crone and former captains Timo Wess, and Florian Kunz.

I must admit that I can’t clearly remember any of Florian Kunz’s games when he played for the German side, though I admired Wess and Crone for a long time. My first major tournament then was the European Championship in Amsterdam where we could win the silver medal, and as the fullback with no man-to-man marking task I am always in the most crucial area of Germany’s defensive game and very much in the midst of the heat on the pitch.

It surprised me when I got the Sail Man-of-Steel-Award in our first game of the tournament here in Delhi, but of course it was a great honour. In a team like ours it is an easy task, because we work very much for each other. Really remarkable about our German team is that everybody gets along well with team mates – especially off the pitch, but on the pitch there are clear hierarchies of course.

Experienced players like Matthias Witthaus, Moritz Fürste, midfield motor Tobias Hauke and of course captain Maximilian Müller all have a gold medal under their belt, they are the clear leaders of our relatively young side.

After the Argentine game, however, I was not so pleased with my performance and the performance of the team overall. None of us can be happy with our performance and we have to improve for the next game.

For me, this World Cup in Delhi is of course the most important tournament that I have played in my career so far. And I am really enjoying it so far, despite the all pervasive security fears. Upon the arrival at the airport the German team was met and guided uncomplicatedly through customs and was taken to the hotel, where we checked in early in the morning and did not get to bed till three.

Routine has since been established, we go for a morning run each day in a Delhi park, and always surrounded by heavy security force of course. That is something to which we by now are used to, and we do not feel there is any threat. I would have imagined circumstances to be more serious, this is all not too bad. We also feel really safe at the hotel, which equals a fortress, but since there is a lot of team business going on we do not get noticed.

I share a room with Florian Woesch with whom I have shared a lot during my formative years in the Junior National team, because we are of same age and know each other well. Forward Martin Zwicker is also from my home club Berliner HC from the Germany’s capital city.

I think I am quite curious about other cultures, that is why I have already played hockey for a year in East Grinstead in England after finishing schooling. Winning both the indoor and the outdoor titles while I was playing there was an incredible bonus.

India again is something completely different. We have been out and about at some days, for example sightseeing in Old Delhi with the whole German team, when we all took Rikshas (human pulled transport) and were chauffeured through the old part of the city. We went to see the mosque and the Sikh temple, but of course you only get a tiny idea and glimpse of how people live, while life in the streets of Delhi pulsating especially all around the old part of the town is truly amazing and very far away from life at home.

Not only this much, will catch you up in the next dispatch.

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