Stand: 17.07.2021
What Jordan Torunarigha had to listen to is still unclear
Source: Getty Images / Matthias Kern
Olympia has its first scandal. During a preparatory game for the tournament in Tokyo, the German national soccer team was the victim of a racist attack. Jordan Torunarigha was bullied. It’s not the first time this has happened to him.
Dhe dress rehearsal for the German Olympic footballers for the Summer Games in Tokyo was canceled five minutes before the end. According to the German Football Association, defender Jordan Torunarigha was racially insulted in the game against Honduras on Saturday in Wakayama, the German team left the field together when the score was 1-1. “That is the only right decision!” Tweeted Torunarigha’s club Hertha BSC about the abandonment of the game.
For trainer Stefan Kuntz and the team there was no doubt about the decision to abort the last test. “Jordan was hard to get, was terribly upset because he said that he was repeatedly racially insulted,” reported Kuntz about the incident: “We made eye contact with one another. It was clear to us: This violates our values, we cannot tolerate that, we take our player completely under protection. “
Union Berlin’s goal scorer Max Kruse, who is part of the game in Tokyo, wrote on Instagram: “This is a statement that we always have to make when something like this happens: to leave the field, under no circumstances continue the game. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the 1st or the 90th minute. Racism simply has no place in football. “
Association of Honduras speaks of misunderstanding
It is not the first time that Berlin’s Torunarigha has been the victim of racist rabble. At the cup game at Schalke in February last year, the Hertha professional was violently insulted, there were monkey noises in his direction. Then tears flowed on the pitch, then there was a frustration dismissal.
On the Twitter account of the Honduras national team, the incident was initially not mentioned at all, only a 1: 1 result was published. The association then said that there was a misunderstanding on the field. When asked about this, Kuntz said: “I don’t know how you felt when you came home with a six. I always said to my mother: there was a misunderstanding between the teacher and me. We’d better leave that uncommented. “
Kuntz reported that “the entire Honduras squad over to us at the bank and apologized after the situation had calmed down a bit.” That was the end of the topic for us ”. The team considered together whether the matter should be investigated further, but decided against it. “We made the right statement, we made the right decision and acted. It was also Jordan’s will who said that we wanted to let it be good, ”said veteran Maximilian Arnold from VfL Wolfsburg, who will lead the team as captain at the Olympics.
Until the cancellation, Kuntz used the game to rotate
The game was scheduled for three times 30 minutes, the 23-year-old Torunarigha from Hertha BSC was on the field in both the second and third third. Honduras took the lead in the first 30 minutes, Felix Uduokhai from Augsburg equalized in the last third.
Kuntz used the game to rotate vigorously until it was canceled and deployed all 18 players in the squad. At the beginning, the coach relied on Marco Richter (FC Augsburg), Max Kruse (1. FC Union Berlin) and Nadiem Amiri (Bayer Leverkusen) in the offensive triple chain.
After numerous cancellations, the German team was only able to travel to Japan with 15 field players and three goalkeepers. A squad of 22 players is permitted. On Sunday (10 a.m.) the DFB team will fly to Tokyo and move into their team hotel in Yokohama.
There the silver medalist from Rio 2016 will start the tournament on Thursday (1.30 p.m., in the sports ticker of the WELT) against Olympic champion Brazil. The other group opponents are Saudi Arabia on Sunday next week and Ivory Coast three days later. The first two teams in each of the four groups of four reach the quarter-finals.
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