Man cannot claim that Anderson Lucoqui has a narrow range of interests. After graduating from high school, he could have imagined studying architecture or sports management or music, he says. And anyway, the music: It has an important place in the life of the 24-year-old born in Zweibrücken in the Palatinate. “As an oasis of calm to relax”, he not only hears what others have produced, but Lucoqui also writes, composes and sings his own pieces, some of which he has already published on YouTube. “Others play Playstation, I make music,” he says. And, for all the differences in tastes, this stuff is good.
But music remained a hobby and he didn’t have time to study. Because Anderson Lucoqui went his way into professional football. In his youth at Bayer Leverkusen and at 1. FC Cologne, he came to Arminia Bielefeld via Fortuna Düsseldorf, rose to the first division with East Westphalia and moved to FSV Mainz 05 after three years on the Alm. He is with the Rheinhessen team Jonathan Meier, who was loaned to Dynamo Dresden last season, was one of two candidates to replace Phillipp Mwene, who had suddenly left the defensive position.
Contact with the 05ers only came about when the position was already vacant, says Lucoqui. “I knew my chances of taking the next step” – a step that includes being on the pitch as often as possible. In the meantime he has reached an age at which it is no longer desirable to sit on the bench, he says. He wants to recommend himself in the preparation, which will continue next Monday after a week break, starting Tuesday for eight days in the training camp in Bad Häring, Austria, initially with his mentality, his athletic requirements and his duel.
“The music is currently in the basement”
“I always give 100 percent,” he says, “and in games that aren’t going well, I want to motivate the team. I’m not too good for anything. ”Especially not for positions other than the one at the back on the left. “Where you are deployed, there shouldn’t be a request concert.” The back left most likely corresponds to his ideas, “but if I’m supposed to play goalkeeper, I play goalkeeper …”
Mainz 05 sees the newcomer not only as a station where he wants to get a regular seat. Rather, he also sees the opportunity to develop further. “The prerequisites for optimizing myself are very good here,” he said, referring primarily to the three-way chain of defense preferred by coach Bo Svensson. Apart from the fact that he was convinced by the informal nature of the coach (“I immediately had the feeling that we were on the same wavelength”), the Dane’s style of play was an important argument for a change. “In Bielefeld I mainly had to think defensively, the next step is to be forced to work more offensively. This changes my thinking and makes me more versatile. “
His first year in the Bundesliga was marked by many ups and downs, says Lucoqui. Both for the team – like the 05er, Arminia also fought long and ultimately successfully against relegation – and for him personally. Up to the eleventh match day he was almost always a member of the first team, after which he was a supplementary player for a while or sat in the stands. “I still thought it was a successful year for me because I dealt with the setbacks well and came back,” he says.
In his spare time, the newcomer from Mainz has been learning the piano for some time, but he doesn’t want to live out his hobby in public for the time being. “The music is currently in the cellar,” he reports. He does not want to expose himself to the accusation of not concentrating enough on his job. “That’s why I let the music rest. Only when everyone says that I made it as a footballer will it go on. “
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