DFB.de regularly introduces a player from the national team who has a particularly significant weekend coming up. Today we’ve selected Shkodran Mustafi, whose FC Valencia battle with champions Atletico Madrid on Sunday for important points in the race for a Champions League spot.
Earlier this month, Valencia beat Bayern Munich first leg of a last 16 Europa League match. No, not in football, but basketball. For Shkodran Mustafi, the dream of facing FC Bayern München in a European competition is still a while away, but well within reach for FC Valencia if they qualify for the Champions League this season. Only the top three are certain to be there, however, with fourth spot having to go through the qualifiers.
Battle for Europe on Sunday against Atletico
On Sunday the race for guaranteed qualification to the Champions League heats up in the Primera Divisions highlight fixture of the week as Valencia face Atletico in Madrid on Sunday. The current champions find themselves third in the table after 25 matches with 54 points, seven points off Real Madrid (61) at the top and five behind Barcelona (59). Directly behind them in fourth place, Valencia are just a point off with 53 points. Sunday’s match then is a battle for Europe, for a chance of glory in Europe’s premier competition, and in a sense, a chance to face the likes of Bayern.
After finishing fifth and eighth in the past years, FC Valencia are on their way to regaining the place that was once theirs. The club often finished in third place, thus holding the title of “champions” of the league behind Real and Barca. This title is once again within their grasp and not least because of Mustafi. Of manager Nuno Simoes’ team, the defence certainly stands out having conceded just 21 goals, the second best record in the league behind FC Barcalona. And in the defence, Mustafi is the stand out player. The German missed the first four games due to injury, but since then he has been unstoppable. He made his Primera Division debut in September in a home game against Cordoba. Valencia won 3-0.
Mustafi is Valencia’s Mr Reliable
After these first 90 minutes, there hasn’t been a single game that has ended without Mustafi having played the full 90 minutes. 21 consecutive games, indispensible for 1890 minutes. Mustafi has acclimatised very quickly to life in Spain; he didn’t need a long settling in period. No wonder, he can change country and league like few others. From a young age he has been moving around in the football world. In 2009, at just 17, he moved from Hamburg to Everton. The next switch came in 2012 when he moved to Sampdoria aged 20. Looking back he admits “that was my toughest decision. I was still very young and many people advised me to stay at Everton. That I should be patient as my chance was coming”. Patience and Mustafi, however, do not go together and he followed his own instinct and advice. “I knew it could be helpful to take a step back in order to move forward. Sampdoria played in the second division, but for me it was important just to play. I knew that the only way for me to improve as a player would be to play regularly.”
Mustafi was right to make this step and now all the evidence would indicate that the same can be said of his decision to join Valencia. Fairly early on in his career in Spain, he showed a quality that he had hidden when we was in England at Everton and in Italy with Sampdoria. In three seasons he scored once for Sampdoria in Serie B, while he never actually played for Everton and therefore never scored. In Spain he scored three in his first six games.
In a video interview on his clubs homepage, he recently revealed the reasons for his attacking qualities. Goals were something he scored very early on in his career, indeed at it was his main role. “I started off as a striker” told Mustafi. I was first retrained after my performances had begun to be talked about at the DFB. “Then when I played for the U15-national side, I was played in defence”, he said. Today he is grateful for it because, he admits, “nobody knows how my career would have developed if I hadn’t changed positions”. It would certainly have been different and he most likely wouldn’t be lining up to face Atletico Madrid on Sunday.
Flashback: Mustafi’s journey to World Cup glory
The game against the champions carries a little nostalgia for Mustafi. It wasn’t too long ago that he was watching Atletico play in a very special game, amongst a very special atmosphere. During last season’s Champions League final between Real and Atletico, Mustafi sat between Phillip Lahm, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Thomas Müller in front of a large screen on an even bigger terrace in south Tirol. He hadn’t split the Bayern boys, he had joined them. The national team was preparing itself to become World Champions. And Mustafi was getting used to being part of the national team.
Indeed he still hadn’t been there long. His first call up from coach Joachim Löw came in February the year before when Löw selected him for the match against Chile. Mustafi describes how the whole experience was for him: “It was something I just couldn’t believe. I played in all the youth teams, U15, U16, U17, U18, U19, U20, U21, but when you then get the call up from the first team you have to ask yourself what is actually happening. When I got the call I was the happiest man in the world. To play for your country, for Germany, it’s a really big deal.”
Everyone in Germany knows what followed in the summer of 2014. Mustafi was initially called up, dropped and then reinstated. And once again everyone in Germany knows exactly what happened next. Mustafi became a World Champion, Germany became World Champions. And that was one sweet headline, not just for Skkodran, but for everyone.
created by mmc/JM
DFB.de regularly introduces a player from the national team who has a particularly significant weekend coming up. Today we’ve selected Shkodran Mustafi, whose FC Valencia battle with champions Atletico Madrid on Sunday for important points in the race for a Champions League spot.
Earlier this month, Valencia beat Bayern Munich first leg of a last 16 Europa League match. No, not in football, but basketball. For Shkodran Mustafi, the dream of facing FC Bayern München in a European competition is still a while away, but well within reach for FC Valencia if they qualify for the Champions League this season. Only the top three are certain to be there, however, with fourth spot having to go through the qualifiers.
Battle for Europe on Sunday against Atletico
On Sunday the race for guaranteed qualification to the Champions League heats up in the Primera Divisions highlight fixture of the week as Valencia face Atletico in Madrid on Sunday. The current champions find themselves third in the table after 25 matches with 54 points, seven points off Real Madrid (61) at the top and five behind Barcelona (59). Directly behind them in fourth place, Valencia are just a point off with 53 points. Sunday’s match then is a battle for Europe, for a chance of glory in Europe’s premier competition, and in a sense, a chance to face the likes of Bayern.
After finishing fifth and eighth in the past years, FC Valencia are on their way to regaining the place that was once theirs. The club often finished in third place, thus holding the title of “champions” of the league behind Real and Barca. This title is once again within their grasp and not least because of Mustafi. Of manager Nuno Simoes’ team, the defence certainly stands out having conceded just 21 goals, the second best record in the league behind FC Barcalona. And in the defence, Mustafi is the stand out player. The German missed the first four games due to injury, but since then he has been unstoppable. He made his Primera Division debut in September in a home game against Cordoba. Valencia won 3-0.
Mustafi is Valencia’s Mr Reliable
After these first 90 minutes, there hasn’t been a single game that has ended without Mustafi having played the full 90 minutes. 21 consecutive games, indispensible for 1890 minutes. Mustafi has acclimatised very quickly to life in Spain; he didn’t need a long settling in period. No wonder, he can change country and league like few others. From a young age he has been moving around in the football world. In 2009, at just 17, he moved from Hamburg to Everton. The next switch came in 2012 when he moved to Sampdoria aged 20. Looking back he admits “that was my toughest decision. I was still very young and many people advised me to stay at Everton. That I should be patient as my chance was coming”. Patience and Mustafi, however, do not go together and he followed his own instinct and advice. “I knew it could be helpful to take a step back in order to move forward. Sampdoria played in the second division, but for me it was important just to play. I knew that the only way for me to improve as a player would be to play regularly.”
Mustafi was right to make this step and now all the evidence would indicate that the same can be said of his decision to join Valencia. Fairly early on in his career in Spain, he showed a quality that he had hidden when we was in England at Everton and in Italy with Sampdoria. In three seasons he scored once for Sampdoria in Serie B, while he never actually played for Everton and therefore never scored. In Spain he scored three in his first six games.
In a video interview on his clubs homepage, he recently revealed the reasons for his attacking qualities. Goals were something he scored very early on in his career, indeed at it was his main role. “I started off as a striker” told Mustafi. I was first retrained after my performances had begun to be talked about at the DFB. “Then when I played for the U15-national side, I was played in defence”, he said. Today he is grateful for it because, he admits, “nobody knows how my career would have developed if I hadn’t changed positions”. It would certainly have been different and he most likely wouldn’t be lining up to face Atletico Madrid on Sunday.
Flashback: Mustafi’s journey to World Cup glory
The game against the champions carries a little nostalgia for Mustafi. It wasn’t too long ago that he was watching Atletico play in a very special game, amongst a very special atmosphere. During last season’s Champions League final between Real and Atletico, Mustafi sat between Phillip Lahm, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Thomas Müller in front of a large screen on an even bigger terrace in south Tirol. He hadn’t split the Bayern boys, he had joined them. The national team was preparing itself to become World Champions. And Mustafi was getting used to being part of the national team.
Indeed he still hadn’t been there long. His first call up from coach Joachim Löw came in February the year before when Löw selected him for the match against Chile. Mustafi describes how the whole experience was for him: “It was something I just couldn’t believe. I played in all the youth teams, U15, U16, U17, U18, U19, U20, U21, but when you then get the call up from the first team you have to ask yourself what is actually happening. When I got the call I was the happiest man in the world. To play for your country, for Germany, it’s a really big deal.”
Everyone in Germany knows what followed in the summer of 2014. Mustafi was initially called up, dropped and then reinstated. And once again everyone in Germany knows exactly what happened next. Mustafi became a World Champion, Germany became World Champions. And that was one sweet headline, not just for Skkodran, but for everyone.
