This is a dream come true

We have reached the final of the World Cup! This is a dream come true. We played England yesterday in the semi-final and beat them 4:1 – of course they lost two players and one of them was really crucial as they build their defence around him. Of course I played in the U21 final but this is all different, this is the real thing.

We really played as a team or a group in that semi-final and also for example were really defending with 11 players, we played very deep in defence at times. England in their defence of course had lost Richard Mantell which probably affected them. Of course then we scored at the right time, too. We just did very well and we were very lucky that we scored the goals in the first half but it was so good that we did. When I scored our third goal I was really happy and screaming out my joy, but not because I scored, I would have been happy with anybody to do that, but about the time at which the goal came, that was really important for us, four minutes to go till halftime and we could take a comfortable lead with us into the break. I would have been happy if anybody else had scored that goal, it was just important that we scored, it was just a crucial moment in the match. We celebrated also the other goals, in a semi final the pressure is immense and it is good to release that for a moment. However, we also were vey clinical in the match overall and showed a good performance, everybody played really very well.

I went to the press conference again and the Indian media are really all very interested in the World Cup. They always want to know some things that affect us, for example whether this is a great honour to be in the side and whether we are influenced by the fact that this is the third final in a row that Germany has played in a World Cup. It does not matter a lot to me personally really that this is the third successive final that Germany has reached in a World Cup tournament. I will only play in this one – and there are not too many of our team that even have played in the last World Cup final. We just want to win – that’s all, the rest is not important. We do not look to the past but just want to win now.

On the pitch, playing in the back as one of two fullbacks, my role is really more tactical. I make the tactical calls on the pitch in the defence but Max Mueller, our captain, is responsible for the pep talk on the field and he calls to the players to pull themselves together and keep fighting and things like that.

Also, people always tell me I am filling big fotsteps, like the former captain Timo Weß, whose brother Beni is still in the side. I have also played with Timo and do not perceive it as pressure on myself, but rather an honour to play with the team and I of course really enjoy. The fact that we both study medicine is purely coincidental, even before I knew him I wanted to study medicine.
So for the final we hope that all Indian hockey fans turn up and support us, our private fan block that the embassy organised keeps on growing. We are really thankful for the embassy to organise this for us, they have been truly fantastic.

We went out to the market and soaked up the Indian atmosphere the other day and again caught a glimpse of a completely different world. Now that we are in the final of course we focus on the game entirely and want to win, thats why we play hockey and what we are here for. We went training this morning and before had a team photo taken at the India Gate, that got a lot of attention from people that were there at the time. Even though we get the impression that hockey is not so big any more in India it has been a great atmosphere and we hope lots of people and Indian hockey fans will come and cheer us on on saturday. See you there.
Bye Martin