Eintracht Frankfurt: This is how Marcel Wenig ticks

Dthe setting is correct. When Eintracht started again a week ago, Marcel Wenig had been on the ball for a long time. “I started earlier to prepare,” says the young professional footballer. Monday noon, still an hour and a half until the first training session of a new practice week.

Little, who recently turned 18, sits on the podium and masters his first press conference with flying colours. When he decided in winter to join Eintracht for the next three years from the summer, he was still 17. Even at 18 you still have dreams. “I want to work hard on myself, bring in my qualities and show everyone what I can do,” he says confidently.

Götze cheered in front of the TV

From Bayern to Eintracht: There are not many football players who choose this route. It’s usually the other way around, as in the case of Eintracht captain Sebastian Rode, who left Frankfurt to try his luck in Munich, which he ultimately found on his return to Eintracht. As a leader, Rode played a big part in winning the Europa League.

Marcel Wenig watched the Seville coup on television – just as he sat in front of the screen as a ten-year-old kid and admired enthusiastically how far from home in Rio de Janeiro Mario Götze took the cross from André Schürrle with his chest and volleyed the ball shot into the goal of the Argentines. Götze “made him”, as the reporter blurted out at the time.

“A great German midfield talent”

And now, eight years later, Little plays in a team with the World Cup goalscorer. Little, who graduated from high school two months ago with an average grade of 3.5, knows about the great crowds that currently prevail in midfield. There, in the zone between defensive and offensive, the Franconian, who was born in Nuremberg, feels particularly comfortable.

When his contract was announced in February, Eintracht sports director Markus Krösche raved about his variability. Sixes, eights, tens – everything is possible in principle, if little comes to the train. “Personally, I feel most comfortable in the eighth position,” he says, bringing Bayern professional Leon Goretzka into play, “whom I’m similar in type to. I’m a box-to-box player.” Before moving from the Bayern boarding school to Frankfurt, he “enjoyed an education at the highest level” for five years, as Krösche said. “We want to push this forward. Marcel is a great German midfield talent.”

“It’s a question of character”

Eintracht is his first professional stop. “I really liked being at Bayern,” he says, “but now I’m here. I live alone. But if I have problems, they help me.” He also felt this in the “very good conversations with Mr. Krösche and Mr. Glasner”. Little has big plans. He wants to “put his way through” in tough men’s football. It’s a question of character. In the end it’s up to me.”

Among the new playmates, Little will find quite a few to look up to. Not only to the World Cup goalscorer Götze, but also to the senior of the team, Makoto Hasebe. “Makoto does so much for himself. He listens to his body, is in great shape and a very good footballer.”

Young talent Little also wants to be a very good footballer one day. Someone who knew by the age of twelve at the latest: “I want to be a professional footballer. I’ve focused on that ever since.” The fact that he did his Abitur parallel to his apprenticeship in Munich was in line with his wishes and those of his parents. “I definitely wanted to have a degree in my pocket,” he says.

Last Saturday, in the first test match of the new season in Wetterau, Little was already on the ball for Eintracht. This Tuesday, at 6:30 p.m. in the game against Viktoria Aschaffenburg, the second work rehearsal could follow. Little on the side of Götze? It would be a dream for the youngster. “I can learn an awful lot from a player like that.”