Although no one has reported missing persons to the criminal police, one could still think on a superficial level that national player and world champion Julian Draxler had either been lost or emigrated. On his Instagram account, he still declares himself to be a member of a team with the long-deleted title “The Team”, which speaks for the thesis of the disappearance. The most recent photo in Draxler’s gallery, on the other hand, is more evidence of an early retirement: it shows him smiling on an exotic palm beach with his girlfriend, who has been pregnant since spring.
Julian Draxler, 28, has finally reappeared in the context in which he became known eleven or twelve years ago: as a professional footballer who is actually supposed to play football.
He was no longer needed at PSG
At Paris Saint-Germain, where he has been under contract for the past five years, the only thing the club seems to be doing is keeping its employees on the move. Otherwise PSG had no more use for Draxler. His last brief appearances in the French league – one minute, two minutes, 13 minutes – were six months ago. In March Hansi Flick called him up for the national team, he played 90 minutes against Israel and another four against Holland before the next break came due to a knee injury. In the summer, the new PSG management assigned him to a group of professionals who were no longer needed.
So Draxler landed on Wednesday afternoon at Tires Airport near Cascais, not far from the Portuguese capital Lisbon, which is set up for private flights, where he was supposed to join the big club Benfica. On Friday the new man will complete his first training session, supervised by his compatriot Roger Schmidt, who has left PSV Eindhoven and moved west.
Although Schmidt, 55, is primarily a football teacher, he has recently also made a name for himself as a rehabilitation coach when he got Mario Götze, 30, stagnating at an insufficient level, back on track at PSV. Draxler’s case has a lot in common with that of his 2014 world champion colleague. Both were raised to prodigy players at a young age, both eventually forgot how to constantly realize their undeniably special talents. Now, in addition to the chance to become an important footballer again, Draxler also has the opportunity to recommend himself as a potential regular in a Champions League club for the World Cup.
As is the custom in the country, the local media organs were informed in good time about the arrival of the German star guest and were on hand at the airport. A photo in the newspaper records showed Draxler on Thursday alongside a bald man named Roger Wittmann, who has been his consultant since the beginning of his career – although quite a few people in the industry are wondering what the consulting service should have consisted of, since Draxler’s once promising career in Paris is always evolving moved deeper into the dead end. Perhaps Wittmann, 62, would answer this question by saying that it has been worthwhile year after year to satisfy the urge to pursue a career with part-time assignments. After all, PSG had rewarded the part-time work richly.
Julian Weigl is moving from Benfica to Mönchengladbach
Rumors kept popping up in Germany that Julian Draxler could return to the Bundesliga. But it stayed with rumours. Interested parties had to assume that it would be an expensive maneuver that FC Bayern could have financed without hesitation. Even the glorious club Benfica can’t really afford a player with Draxler’s salary habits. But PSG seem to mean business with the announcement to clean up the luxury squad. Noisy records the French are accommodating to the Portuguese by initially lending Draxler to Benfica for a year (rent: 2.5 million euros) and also continuing to pay 80 percent of the salary.
While one Julian was welcomed as a “bombshell” by the Portuguese press (should be a compliment), the other Julian said goodbye to Benfica quite unobtrusively. Julian Weigl, 26, joined Borussia Mönchengladbach on Thursday, he was also loaned out for a year, and he too is hoping that a change of location will attract the attention of the national coach in time for the World Cup. He played for Benfica for almost three years, now he should help to stabilize the slightly too thin squad of Borussia.
Weigl had proven himself in Portugal, especially in his first year, he achieved high popularity ratings, but he rarely shone with his horizontally oriented style of play. He made 115 appearances in total, scoring four goals, even considering his role as a defensive midfielder. Benfica will expect more magic from Julian Draxler, that’s for sure.