For most players its about digging deep, being patient and making the most of the opportunities that cometh the way. Dahoud and Brandt tell us more…
Football is more than just a game for all aficionados of the sport. Bill Shankly, former Scottish footballer-turned-manager, went a step further and said, “some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it’s much more serious than that.”
And for a professional footballer, his life shuttles between the training ground and the stadium. All he wants is to get out on the pitch and play week-in-and-out; from the first friendly in pre-season to the final matchday.
But in a squad of 25, only a handful are fortunate and consistent enough to get to do so. For most, its about digging deep, being patient and making the most of the opportunities that cometh the way.
Lucien Favre and Mahmoud Dahoud have known each other for a fairly long time. In fact, it was under the Swiss tactician that Dahoud made his senior team debut for Borussia Monchengladbach in a UEFA Europa League play-off win over FK Sarajevo in 2014.
When Favre was announced as the manager of Dortmund in 2018, the midfielder knew that he must remain on his toes to be a regular starter. In the first match against RB Leipzig he ticked all the right boxes and even got on the scoresheet.
“I thought my game was very good. Nobody can tell me otherwise. I was aggressive. I played my passes well,” reflected Dahoud.
Dortmund went on an unbeaten run of three games after that and the German international was a part of all three matches. Yet, against FC Nürnberg, he was dropped from the starting line-up.
“After three games, I found myself back on the bench. That was a difficult phase, yes. Everyone. Everyone worries. Even the toughest. Why am I not playing, what have I done wrong? This, that. Surely that can’t be so, I trained well?
“Why am I not playing? Just because he’s new, does he have to play now or something? Something like that. It’s normal. And to go through such a phase and then say, ‘I’ll get through it, maybe I doubt it for a day, but in my basic attitude, I know what I can do’.”
His teammate Julian Brandt is another highly-rated youngster who is now an instrumental figure in Dortmund. The club reportedly paid around €25m to lure him from Bayer Leverkusen. And he had an immediate impact, coming off the bench, by scoring in the first game of the 2019/20 season in a 5-1 win over FC Augsburg.
But Brandt was not automatically considered a regular starter, and instead, he was mainly used as a second-half substitute.
In October 2019, after a 2-2 draw against Freiburg, he even went on to term his situation as ‘difficult’ in Dortmund.
“The way it is in professional football, there are many, I’ll say volcanoes, about to erupt, because there are 11 players who are playing, many who are not playing. There are many who are very angry with the coach’s decisions, or maybe with themselves because things just don’t work out for them,” Brandt expressed the complexities of the life of a professional footballer.
The going gets even tougher for players as every movement both on-and-off the pitch is put under scanner by the media. A bad day on the pitch does not necessarily end with the final whistle or an earful from the coach in the dressing room; an instant social media outrage, followed by negative press coverage, and sometimes the wrath continues until the next time you make amends for your previous mistake.
On matchday 16 against RB Leipzig, Brandt scored an incredible goal when he outfoxed Dayot Upamecano with a silky touch-and-turn and slotted the ball home. At half-time, Dortmund went into the tunnel 2-0 up and his partnership with Julian Weigl was flourishing.
But a moment of indecisiveness and the former Leverkusen man was put to the sword by Timo Werner. The striker pounced on a feeble back-pass from Brandt towards the keeper and cut the lead into half. Six minutes later Werner struck again and Dortmund’s hard work in the first half had gone to waste.
“If the media knocks you, how do you deal with it? How do you deal with pressure? Not just pressure in a game when you’re pressed, but you’re facing a final, you’re in the hotel, how do you deal with the situation, does that affect you? Yes? No? These are all mind games,” explained Brandt.
To help the players fight their angst and worries, Borussia Dortmund hired a sports psychologist in Philipp Laux, a former Borussia Dortmund player and German Champion with BVB in 2002.
“I think there used to be this idea that the players had to lie down on the couch with the sports psychologist. But that phase is long gone. It’s about performance development, and the mental aspect plays a role equally important to the other three areas, technique, tactics and physique.
“It brings me lots of fun and joy, especially working with young players, accompanying them on the path that lies ahead, and strengthening their personality,” stated Laux, asserting the importance of sound mental health of a player to produce better performances while dealing with pressure.
Brandt enjoys the sessions with Laux. He feels that the former goalkeeper exudes calm and is a good listener which helps him maintain his composure in difficult times.
Although Laux was supposed to join the team from July 1, 2020, the Coronavirus pandemic forced Dortmund to get him on board much earlier.
In the ‘new normal’ the players were under lockdown for several months and when football finally made a comeback, the players were missing their 12th man. The Signal Iduna Park, which is a deafening cauldron of vociferous chants, was reduced to a hollow amphitheatre of chirping birds.
Dortmund restarted their Bundesliga campaign with a derby win over FC Schalke but the three points did not taste the same without the fans.
“You play for the fans, for reactions, and everything is more fun than in front of empty stands,” feels Brandt who has no qualms in accepting that he longs for the ‘real thing’.
Laux explains Brandt’s emotions a bit more scientifically.
“It’s saved in the nerve memory, having a sense of achievement and sharing it with the crowd, getting a response from the crowd, ‘Hey, you did a great job’. It’s stored in the brain, it has become flesh and blood. And that’s gone now. Depending on how things develop, we may have games without spectators again in the next few weeks. This change will be exciting.”
Both players agree that it is important to distract oneself from football intermittently to bring back one’s best, and especially if you have been benched.
“Sometimes for me when I haven’t played, after the game, it’s just a day to forget. And then you think about this and that and you want to distract yourself somehow, which is not so easy if you’re so crazy and you love this sport,” said Dahoud.
Fans marvel at the glitz and glamour of the game and worship the players as invincible demi-gods, often forgetting that the boys are also human, with body, soul and a heart.
But back home Dahoud is still a kid to his uncle and Brandt a jovial elder brother to his younger sibling Janis Brandt. Hence the near and dear ones take centre stage during the bad days.
“It is important you have people around you who might pick you up and say, move onto other thoughts, or maybe encourage you a little, keep the faith, it’ll be OK. When you come home there’s no football for two or three days. It’s so refreshing that afterwards you come back to training at the end, and all of a sudden you’re creative again, you do your stuff and everyone thinks you’re in a good mood.”
Laux believes that football is a game of mistakes. But at the same time, mistakes can be minimized with a change in approach. With training, a player can change his mentality and inculcate in himself the capability to react as the situation demands.
“It’s important players accept things, and that is very difficult for many. Football is a game of mistakes after all. It’s part of it, it just is.
“And it’s a question of how do I want to deal with this error? And that’s psychology. He can learn. If you look up mentality, it says it’s a way of thinking. So by definition, mentality can be changed and learned and trained.”
At the top level, more often than not it is the mentality and perseverance that differentiates a good player from a world-class player. Dahoud came back from an injury whereas Brandt has shown the versatility to play in multiple positions. Their mental fortitude have helped hem overcome their initial struggles and have now become indispensable members of the squad.
In a Der Klassiker in 2018, Dortmund was trailing at half-time. Dahoud was introduced at the beginning of the second half to change the complexion of the match. The midfielder ticked all the right boxes after coming on and with Marco Reus leading from the front, the team showed extraordinary character to register a memorable 3-2 win over their arch-rivals. After the break, Die Borussen had a more aggressive body language and the attacking mentality coupled with self-belief made the difference at the end of 90 minutes.
After all, “you play football with your head, and your legs are there to help you.”
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