Ex-BVB professional Piszczek: Götze to FC Bayern was “the biggest break”

Time has “cost a lot of energy”

Lukasz Piszczek ended his professional career in the summer and returned to his Polish homeland for fourth division club LKS Goczalkowice-Zdroj. The 36-year-old defensive all-rounder does not want to “end” his time as a footballer there, he said in the Podcast “Kicker meets DAZN”. That is “not the word I want to use. I play for fun at my home club. I ended my career in Dortmund ”.

The 66-time national player played for Borussia Dortmund from 2010 until the end of last season, won two championships, three DFB cups and reached the Champions League final in 2013, which was lost to FC Bayern. The then BVB coach Jürgen Klopp signed Piszczek in 2010 on a free transfer from relegated Hertha BSC. With the black and yellow, the crowd favorite won the title straight away: “That was the greatest story for me: I came from a descent and a year later I am German champion.”

Piszczek said he was never someone who wanted to change often – he could also have imagined spending his entire career in Berlin. The offer from Dortmund was one that he could not refuse. Also because the Ruhr area reminded him a lot of his Silesian homeland: “Dortmund and Poland, it was almost the same for me. (…) That’s why I knew that this was the right club for me. Dortmund and my person, my character – that fit. “

Mastery at BVB cost “a lot of energy” – Götze change “biggest break”

Even though he always played at a high level with Dortmund, including 54 times in the “premier class”, it was never again as successful as between 2010 and 2013. “The biggest break” for this team, which is his character and playful class described as ideally put together, the move from Mario Götze (29; today PSV) to FC Bayern Munich was in 2013. “Because we were shown that we wouldn’t play together forever.”

At that time, the Dortmund home-grown went for the fixed transfer of 37 million euros from BVB to the record champions. “It was a shock because we were wondering what could happen if we kept playing like this,” said Piszczek. He was angry with Götze, who returned to Dortmund in 2016 and is one of the ten players with the most joint appearances for Poland (168), not: “Everyone is responsible for their decision. At that time, Mario wanted to switch to Pep Guardiola. “

Götze, Cuba & Co.
With these professionals Piszczek was most often on the fieldTo overview
Piszczek sees the fact that the cited break occurred as a normal development, as he described. During this period, other top performers in the championship teams gradually left BVB. Before Götze already Shinji Kagawa (Man United), then Robert Lewandowski and Mats Hummels (both FC Bayern). Jakub Blaszczykowski went to Florence in 2015, Kevin Großkreutz to Galatasaray and Sebastian Kehl ended his career.

“This intensive time cost us a lot of energy back then. I think it is normal for such a break to occur, and it may have to be, ”said Piszczek. This ultimately also affected coach Klopp, who resigned in Dortmund in 2015 and, as he said, wanted to allow a “new wind”. “In the end we still qualified for Europe. It’s just a shame that the coach then decided not to go any further. “

Will former BVB professional Piszczek be a coach? “At the moment that is still a long way off”

For Piszczek, becoming a professional trainer is not yet a specific goal, but neither is anything that he rules out: “A lot of people ask me about it. I always say that I’ll try a few things first. I can’t say anything specific yet. ”If he saw that he was enjoying it, he could imagine the step. “But that’s still a long way off at the moment. I’ve seen a lot of coaches and seen how much energy it takes. As a player, you tend to take care of yourself and as a coach you have to take care of all the trappings.

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