Kevin Grosskreutz at KFC Uerdingen – The descent of a world champion – Football

Krefeld. On Thursday afternoon Kevin Großkreutz arrived at Hopfgarten. The community of 5600 inhabitants is located in a valley in the middle of the Kitzbühel Alps, the highest point of the place is the summit of Torhelms in Langen Grund, after all, 2494 meters high. Here, the 29-year-old has experienced the low point of his football career up to now.

Because Großkreutz did not come to Tyrol for holidays. He has joined KFC Uerdingen, who is preparing for the third season. The man who belonged to the team of the German national team in 2014 and is therefore still reigning world champion. Borussia Dortmund have won two championships and the DFB Cup. The Champions League matches of the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu of Real Madrid and the Emirates Stadium of Arsenal FC have been denied. In the future, this man will play in venues called Frimo Stadium or Mechatronics Arena, which host about 10,000 spectators and are rarely sold. In the third league stops.

Quality Counts

The KFC Uerdingen, just out of the Regionalliga thrown, managed with a hit. "We are very pleased that we have succeeded in this transfer," said Managing Director Nikolas Weinhart. "For us, less the name than the playful quality that Kevin Grosskreutz brings with him, he will certainly be able to greatly strengthen the team and bring a lot of experience, from which we will benefit."

If Grosskreutz is happy? The move to a third division marks another stage of the 29-year-old athlete's collapse – and probably the last chance to put his career back on track.

Five years ago, Grosskreutz was at the top, under coach Jürgen Klopp He was the undisputed BVB player. Others were better at football, faster, scored more goals – but Großkreutz still played almost always. And in 2014, at the World Cup, he did not come to the use, but came back but as the world champion – and tattooed the trophy on the left shoulder, which adorned already the championship trophy and the DFB Cup

The feeling of BVB: This success was perhaps one too many. The fact that the off-road midfielder urinated a few months ago after the final of the cup lost in a Berlin hotel lobby had cost him a lot of credit. Upon his return from Brazil, the club heard that the Ur-Dortmunder feel a bit too much like world champion and behave accordingly as well. The fitness values ​​at the beginning of the training had been catastrophic.

Disastrous was also the next season, for the BVB and Großkreutz personally. And when in 2015 its promoter Klopp went and Tuchel came, it was quickly clear: A future at BVB there was no more, Großkreutz moved to Istanbul to Galatasaray. Due to a form error, he was not able to play there for half a year – he came back in winter from pure homesickness to Germany. But even at VfB Stuttgart, he was not happy: the summer descent was followed by the expulsion in the spring, after Großkreutz was late with junior VfB players in the the red light district and involved in a fight.

He took a fresh start a year ago at Darmstadt 98. He was eliminated at the end of the season for sporting reasons, as coach Dirk Schuster

always pointed out. Family reasons

Uerdingen. On the one hand, family reasons explain the change in the Lower Rhine. With his one and a half year old daughter, Caron, he now lives much closer to his parents in Dortmund.

On the other hand, Uerdingen is ambitious in sports and the chairman and majority shareholder Mikhail Ponomarev has already piloted other former professionals like Maximilian Beister and Stefan Aigner in Krefeld.

They do not have to go hungry: Alexander Baumjohann, whom the KFC also wanted to bring, has been seen to offer a monthly salary of 30,000 euros, according to the information in this newspaper. Grosskreutz is unlikely to win much.