Why do children take up playing football? In the history of the game, many youngsters simply wanted to be like their idols – the names of Fitz Walter, Uwe Seeler, Franz Beckenbauer, Gerd Müller, Lothar Matthäus, and Oliver Kahn will ring a bell with every true fan; their latter-day equivalents are Mesut Özil, Philipp Lahm, Thomas Müller and, increasingly, Birgit Prinz and Lira Bajramaj. Players whose personalities and achievements have served as motivation for generations of young boys and girls.
Often enough, though, they've got their role model right in front of them – their dad, uncle, older brothers or sisters. After all, football is a family thing, where passion and talent are handed down like precious heirlooms. "Family Ties", the new series here on DFB.de, takes you right into the living rooms (or, more often than not, goal-equipped front gardens) of German homes where football takes centre stage.
A young man, dark-haired, well-spoken, quietly choosing his words, precise in his statements. His views are listened to in the dressing room, and if he has to be ruled out for any reason, the coach speaks of a “major loss for the team.” ‘Matter-of-fact, no frills’ is how you would describe his style of play; he’s a centre-back, blessed with loads of talent, nowhere near the end of his development. His name could well be Mats Hummels. In actual fact, it’s Jonas – Jonas Hummels.
EUR 200,000 or EUR 20m – “that’s just crazy figures”
Aged 21, Jonas is two years younger than his brother, who’s five centimetres taller and plays two leagues higher – while Mats’s Dortmund goes face to face with the likes of Bayern Munich, Borussia Mönchengladbach and Schalke 04 in the Bundesliga, Jonas’s Unterhaching square up against lesser-known Carl-Zeiss Jena, SV Wehen Wiesbaden and SV Babelsberg in Germany’s “3. Liga” (the third-tier league after the Bundesliga and Bundesliga2). Jonas is Unterhaching’s captain, Mats a key figure in Dortmund’s 2010-11 championship-winning squad.
Comparisons are loath, as they say, and especially unnerving for siblings, but then again, it’s almost logical for people to make them if both are footballers and even play the same position. Jonas has got used to this, it no longer bothers him, and when asked whether he’s aware of their respective transfer market value (EUR 20m for Mats, EUR 200,000 for himself), he shrugs off the question: “That’s just crazy figures, it doesn’t make the slightest difference to us and how we see the world.”
Working hard for comeback after cruciate ligament rupture
What are brothers to one another – an encumbrance, a constant incentive, tough competition? “It’s never a good idea to compare yourself with your own brother,” says Jonas Hummels. When Mats made his debut for Germany on 13 May 2010, Jonas was a player in Unterhaching’s reserve team playing in the “Bayernliga” (fifth division). “It’s probably correct to say that in theory, everything’s possible, but I think it would be absurd for me to compare myself with him.”
If there’s one thing that Jonas does feel envy for, it’s his brother’s fitness. While Mats has every reason to look forward to featuring in Germany’s upcoming friendly against France in Bremen on 29 February 2012, Jonas is working hard for his comeback following a cruciate ligament rupture sustained early in the season, during Unterhaching’s celebrated 4-1 win away to Offenbach. A match situation like thousands before: Offenbach playing a long ball, the defender – one leg in the air, the other on the ground – trying to get to it before the forward, there’s contact, he twists his knee… “I knew straight away that the knee was gone.”
“We’re cut from the same cloth”
That was six months ago. The knee is healing well, and in 4-5 weeks Jonas Hummels plans to re-join regular training. He’s actually been back on the pitch a few times doing easy routines. “It felt great to be back in football boots again,” he smiles, warding off any suggestions of an early comeback. “I’m sure I’m going to get a few games before the summer, but let’s face it – we won’t see the real Jonas Hummels again until the next season.”
In the meantime, he says, his older brother has been a great help, not necessarily by speaking words of comfort and wisdom, but by doing things the Hummels way – standing back and allowing Jonas to deal with the issue himself. “We’re cut from the same cloth,” said Mats Hummels in an interview with German website Welt Online a few months ago, “if there’s something to come to terms with, we prefer doing it on our own.”
Brother’s popularity not a burden
In the interview, the Germany international called his younger brother ‘the most important person in my life’. They’re very close, which more likely than not is a consequence of their parents breaking up when the brothers were only aged eight and six, respectively – an experience that welded them even closer together. “We spent our entire childhood and youth together, sharing many friends and interests,” says Jonas.
Mats calls him ‘a fixed part of my life’. Hardly a day goes by without the brothers chatting online or speaking on the phone, hardly a weekend without one calling the other, especially right after a match. “In the old days, we used to bicker and fight like brothers do – today, we’ve no time for that,” is how Jonas summarizes their relationship in a nutshell. On the pitch, their playing styles are very similar. And off it? “I think Mats is a bit more self-assured; I’m more of an introvert.”
For 21-year-old Jonas, his brother’s popularity is “definitely not a burden. In fact, I’ve grown used to being asked ‘Hey, aren’t you Mats Hummels’s brother?’”
For Jonas, there’s even a positive to be had from all this, affirming “it used to annoy me but now I know that for most people it’s just some kind of reference point. And in the long run, it helps you find out to whom you really matter.”
“I do my own thing”
Dr Hans-Dieter Hermann, the German national team’s sports psychologist, recommends for stars’ brothers (or sisters, for that matter) “to build up a professional identity of their own.”
Before his injury, Jonas was on very good track, having become a regular for Unterhaching and even been given the captaincy by coach Heiko Herrlich, which even for him was a surprise, given his young age and the fact that in the previous season, he had hardly figured in the first team. Nevertheless, Jonas Hummels is held in such high esteem that only days after the diagnosis, the club extended his contract until 2014.
Jonas and Mats Hummels’ childhood club of many years was Bayern Munich, and to this day, the brothers’ father, Hermann Hummels, is a youth coach there. But Jonas’s heart now beats for Unterhaching: “I more or less grew up here and became an adult, without any pressure on me. I can do my own thing here, build up something of my own.” As Jonas Hummels the footballer, not Mats Hummels’s kid brother.
created by ts
[bild1]
Why do children take up playing football? In the history of the game, many youngsters simply wanted to be like their idols – the names of Fitz Walter, Uwe Seeler, Franz Beckenbauer, Gerd Müller, Lothar Matthäus, and Oliver Kahn will ring a bell with every true fan; their latter-day equivalents are Mesut Özil, Philipp Lahm, Thomas Müller and, increasingly, Birgit Prinz and Lira Bajramaj. Players whose personalities and achievements have served as motivation for generations of young boys and girls.
Often enough, though, they've got their role model right in front of them – their dad, uncle, older brothers or sisters. After all, football is a family thing, where passion and talent are handed down like precious heirlooms. "Family Ties", the new series here on DFB.de, takes you right into the living rooms (or, more often than not, goal-equipped front gardens) of German homes where football takes centre stage.
A young man, dark-haired, well-spoken, quietly choosing his words, precise in his statements. His views are listened to in the dressing room, and if he has to be ruled out for any reason, the coach speaks of a “major loss for the team.” ‘Matter-of-fact, no frills’ is how you would describe his style of play; he’s a centre-back, blessed with loads of talent, nowhere near the end of his development. His name could well be Mats Hummels. In actual fact, it’s Jonas – Jonas Hummels.
EUR 200,000 or EUR 20m – “that’s just crazy figures”
Aged 21, Jonas is two years younger than his brother, who’s five centimetres taller and plays two leagues higher – while Mats’s Dortmund goes face to face with the likes of Bayern Munich, Borussia Mönchengladbach and Schalke 04 in the Bundesliga, Jonas’s Unterhaching square up against lesser-known Carl-Zeiss Jena, SV Wehen Wiesbaden and SV Babelsberg in Germany’s “3. Liga” (the third-tier league after the Bundesliga and Bundesliga2). Jonas is Unterhaching’s captain, Mats a key figure in Dortmund’s 2010-11 championship-winning squad.
Comparisons are loath, as they say, and especially unnerving for siblings, but then again, it’s almost logical for people to make them if both are footballers and even play the same position. Jonas has got used to this, it no longer bothers him, and when asked whether he’s aware of their respective transfer market value (EUR 20m for Mats, EUR 200,000 for himself), he shrugs off the question: “That’s just crazy figures, it doesn’t make the slightest difference to us and how we see the world.”
Working hard for comeback after cruciate ligament rupture
What are brothers to one another – an encumbrance, a constant incentive, tough competition? “It’s never a good idea to compare yourself with your own brother,” says Jonas Hummels. When Mats made his debut for Germany on 13 May 2010, Jonas was a player in Unterhaching’s reserve team playing in the “Bayernliga” (fifth division). “It’s probably correct to say that in theory, everything’s possible, but I think it would be absurd for me to compare myself with him.”
If there’s one thing that Jonas does feel envy for, it’s his brother’s fitness. While Mats has every reason to look forward to featuring in Germany’s upcoming friendly against France in Bremen on 29 February 2012, Jonas is working hard for his comeback following a cruciate ligament rupture sustained early in the season, during Unterhaching’s celebrated 4-1 win away to Offenbach. A match situation like thousands before: Offenbach playing a long ball, the defender – one leg in the air, the other on the ground – trying to get to it before the forward, there’s contact, he twists his knee… “I knew straight away that the knee was gone.”
“We’re cut from the same cloth”
That was six months ago. The knee is healing well, and in 4-5 weeks Jonas Hummels plans to re-join regular training. He’s actually been back on the pitch a few times doing easy routines. “It felt great to be back in football boots again,” he smiles, warding off any suggestions of an early comeback. “I’m sure I’m going to get a few games before the summer, but let’s face it – we won’t see the real Jonas Hummels again until the next season.”
In the meantime, he says, his older brother has been a great help, not necessarily by speaking words of comfort and wisdom, but by doing things the Hummels way – standing back and allowing Jonas to deal with the issue himself. “We’re cut from the same cloth,” said Mats Hummels in an interview with German website Welt Online a few months ago, “if there’s something to come to terms with, we prefer doing it on our own.”
Brother’s popularity not a burden
In the interview, the Germany international called his younger brother ‘the most important person in my life’. They’re very close, which more likely than not is a consequence of their parents breaking up when the brothers were only aged eight and six, respectively – an experience that welded them even closer together. “We spent our entire childhood and youth together, sharing many friends and interests,” says Jonas.
Mats calls him ‘a fixed part of my life’. Hardly a day goes by without the brothers chatting online or speaking on the phone, hardly a weekend without one calling the other, especially right after a match. “In the old days, we used to bicker and fight like brothers do – today, we’ve no time for that,” is how Jonas summarizes their relationship in a nutshell. On the pitch, their playing styles are very similar. And off it? “I think Mats is a bit more self-assured; I’m more of an introvert.”
For 21-year-old Jonas, his brother’s popularity is “definitely not a burden. In fact, I’ve grown used to being asked ‘Hey, aren’t you Mats Hummels’s brother?’”
For Jonas, there’s even a positive to be had from all this, affirming “it used to annoy me but now I know that for most people it’s just some kind of reference point. And in the long run, it helps you find out to whom you really matter.”
“I do my own thing”
[bild2]
Dr Hans-Dieter Hermann, the German national team’s sports psychologist, recommends for stars’ brothers (or sisters, for that matter) “to build up a professional identity of their own.”
Before his injury, Jonas was on very good track, having become a regular for Unterhaching and even been given the captaincy by coach Heiko Herrlich, which even for him was a surprise, given his young age and the fact that in the previous season, he had hardly figured in the first team. Nevertheless, Jonas Hummels is held in such high esteem that only days after the diagnosis, the club extended his contract until 2014.
Jonas and Mats Hummels’ childhood club of many years was Bayern Munich, and to this day, the brothers’ father, Hermann Hummels, is a youth coach there. But Jonas’s heart now beats for Unterhaching: “I more or less grew up here and became an adult, without any pressure on me. I can do my own thing here, build up something of my own.” As Jonas Hummels the footballer, not Mats Hummels’s kid brother.
