IIn a few weeks, when the Bundesliga season is over, Kevin-Prince Boateng’s career will also end. He recently turned 36, and last summer he announced that this season at Hertha BSC would be his last. He only makes short appearances in Berlin, and almost two decades as a professional footballer have also left their mark on the body. These are good reasons for retiring.
Another reason that Boateng had imposed on himself should soon no longer apply. When he played in Frankfurt in the 2017/2018 season, he was fascinated by a team-mate with whom he got on really well off the pitch. So Boateng placed a bet on his buddy: “If Marius Wolf doesn’t become a national player, then I’ll stop.” Now, almost five years later, Boateng can change the sentence slightly: “If Marius Wolf becomes a national player, I’ll stop.”
Still, it has to be mentioned these days for the sake of form, if you follow in Marius Wolf’s footsteps in the German selection, he is not officially a national team player – apart from an appearance in the U20s in 2015. But after the nomination of national coach Hansi Flick and the first impressions in the circle of the first team of the German Football Association (DFB), it would be surprising if Wolf in the test matches on Saturday (8.45 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the national football team and on ZDF ) against Peru in Mainz and on Tuesday (8:45 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the national soccer team and on RTL) against Belgium in Cologne.
Wolf is one of six players in the squad without an international cap. But unlike the younger Mergim Berisha, Malick Thiaw, Josha Vagnoman, Kevin Schade and Felix Nmecha, at 27 he is already in the middle of his career. Wolf has not forgotten the difficult times at the beginning. When the Bundesliga was supposed to start in Hanover at the age of 20, he was “pushed off” to the second team in the regional league, as he recalled on Wednesday. “Maybe it was good that this happened so early in my career. So I knew what I had to do to prevent something like that from happening again.” Only in Frankfurt, where he was deployed in midfield, was it not just his friend Boateng who realized what Wolf was capable of.
“If Marius Wolf doesn’t become a national player, then I’ll stop,” said Kevin-Price Boateng when they were in Frankfurt together.
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Photo: Jan Huebner
The move to Dortmund in mid-2018 was supposed to be the next step forward, but initially turned into a step backwards. Loans to Hertha BSC and 1. FC Köln for one season each documented Wolf’s low value for BVB. Only then did Wolf make the progress he had hoped for three years earlier. Under the new coach Marco Rose, his operating times increased.
Wolf, who was set up as a center forward at the beginning in Dortmund, became interesting for the national team, but only after the World Cup break when Edin Terzić used him as a right-back – a position that is also a problem for the DFB team. The Dortmund solution could also be the German one. In any case, Terzić sounds enthusiastic: “He has proven that you can achieve anything with us with work and diligence.”
Wolf’s move to Dortmund was initially a step backwards.
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Image: Huebner
If you want to understand what distinguishes Wolf, you should not only watch him in the game, but also in training. There he is not the only one who attracts attention because of his blond braid. Wolf shows less art and more combat. His Dortmund teammate Emre Can also praised that. “I’ve always liked the way he trained. He stepped on the gas, never complained. Marius can become an important player for the national team.” It is no secret that no player has been stuck in the position of right-back for years. “Marius can take the chance, I trust him.”
It sounds as if Flick not only wants to try out the Dortmund success model before the European Championships, but also the Argentine one. “Emre Can and Marius Wolf are responsible for the fact that Dortmund is doing so well at the moment. Both have the mentality that we need.” There should never be a lack of that at Wolf. “My fighting spirit sets me apart. I always give 100 percent,” he said.
Around the World Cup in Qatar, Wolf again had a difficult time, as he revealed to the “Ruhr Nachrichten”. “I had atrial fibrillation in my heart. The heart rhythm was not normal. It makes you queasy and weird.” In November, it was said “that I have to do the surgery”. That weighed heavily on him. “It was a sleepless night. I didn’t know what was going on.” He didn’t think about football between the diagnosis and the operation. It was only important to him “that you wake up after the operation, everything is fine and everything will be like before”.
