Mario Götze no longer wants to deal with the messed-up football World Cup in Qatar. Germany’s winning goalscorer in the 2014 World Cup final against Argentina prefers to look ahead to the European Championship at home in 15 months.
“In the end it was a bitter experience for many of us if you only look at the result,” said offensive player Götze, who is preparing with the national team for the first international matches of the year against Peru and Belgium in his adopted home of Frankfurt, looking back on the preliminary rounds -Out in Qatar.
“The nice thing about football is that it always goes on. You quickly have new tasks, new challenges. It’s now about looking to the future, staying solution-oriented,” said the 30-year-old, the national coach Hansi Flick after five years DFB break for the World Cup brought back to the national team. The home EM is still a bit far in the future, said Götze. Nevertheless, it is already a matter of developing “a positive feeling” and “tackling the topics as a unit with a lot of anticipation and a lot of energy”.
Trapp: “It’s about finding yourself as a team”
His Frankfurt teammate Kevin Trapp therefore attaches sporting value to the upcoming games on Saturday (8.45 p.m. / ZDF) in Mainz and three days later in Cologne. “These are two games that can be important for us. They are the first games this year. We want to start with good results,” said the 32-year-old goalkeeper.
Personally, Trapp has to accept that after captain Manuel Neuer’s serious injury (broken leg), Flick is planning to score against both Peru and Belgium with competitor Marc-André ter Stegen from FC Barcelona.
“It’s about preparing well for the European Championships. It’s about finding ourselves as a team so that we can go to the European Championships at home in the best possible way,” said Trapp after the national team’s public training session on Monday evening in Frankfurt , attended by around 3,500 fans, including many children. “We want everyone to be happy, that people can identify with us,” said Trapp: “But of course we intend to make people happy not only with signatures, but also with performance.
