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Bundesliga - official website, Germany
May 25 2014
More to come from Mkhitaryan
Dortmund - "When I received the ball from Marco Reus, I thought to
myself, 'Right this is it: if I don't score this, I may as well pack
up and go home.' And when it went in, I said to myself, 'Why can I
score here but not against Real Madrid?'"
It was a period of four days in April that goes a long way to summing
up Henrikh Mkhitaryan's first season in the Bundesliga. Bearing the
guilt of missing three good opportunities to take Borussia Dortmund's
UEFA Champions League quarter-final second leg to extra time, he
recovered to score the opening goal in a 3-0 win away at Bundesliga
champions FC Bayern München in the Allianz Arena on Matchday 30.
Campaign of contrasts
>From agony to ecstasy in a short space of time, the two episodes were
the clearest examples of the range of emotions Mkhitaryan has
experienced in 2013/14, a season peppered with peaks and troughs for
the 25-year-old. There were his debut strikes at Eintracht Frankfurt,
a period of eight games between November and January when he wasn't
involved in a single goal, that stunning win in Munich, and finally
the
DFB Cup final on May 17, when he was substituted after 60 minutes in
an eventual 2-0 loss to Bayern after extra time.
The Armenian international admits it is the Madrid game that still
haunts him, however. After losing their last eight first leg in the
Spanish capital 3-0, a Reus double had Real rocking, but the Spaniards
scraped through to the last four with the help of some ill-timed
profligacy from Mkhitaryan. "It was an unhappy moment in my life," he
told newspaper welt.de reflectively. "People watching must have
thought I was trying to miss, when in fact I was the guy on the pitch
who wanted to score most. Sometimes life is like that, though."
Back on the horse
Despite the pain of that evening, he managed to pick himself back up
through a combination of his own will-power and some encouraging words
from those around him. "We have a saying in Armenia: Sometimes God
lets you fall, so that you learn to appreciate things when they
eventually improve", to which his coach Jürgen Klopp was also able to
add some of his wisdom after warmly embracing the Yerevan-born star in
the aftermath of the defeat to the eventual 2014 Champions League
winners. "He told me to keep my head up and not feel down, that there
would be moments like this in my career and that I'd come back
stronger for it."
Indeed, as acute as his disappointment may have been, Mkhitaryan
succeeded in regaining his belief that the skills which convinced BVB
to sign him in the first place would eventually assert themselves once
more. As well as helping the club reach Berlin with a goal in the Cup
semi-final against VfL Wolfsburg, he also netted three times and
assisted once in the final five games of the season to finish with
nine goals and ten assists, an impressive record indeed for a player
new to the rigours of Germany's top flight.
Adaptation required
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Mkhitaryan, who joined from Ukrainian side FC
Shakhtar Donetsk, readily admits that becoming accustomed to football
in Germany has been his most daunting challenge, and one that he is
still some way off fully mastering. "The biggest problem I had was
that I came from a league which you can't compare with the Bundesliga.
At Shakhtar, matches often panned out the same way: the opposition
defended deep, we always had the ball and if we scored first, the game
was practically decided. In Germany that's not how it is. The teams
are more evenly matched and even sides in the bottom half can put you
under a lot of pressure.
"And then there's our own system that changes, sometimes even during
matches," Mkhitaryan continues. "Sometimes we'll dominate games with
possession and aggressive pressing high up the pitch, other times
we'll play on the counter-attack, so I have to be 100 per cent alert
all the time. Sometimes I'm able to score or assist goals, sometimes
not, but the important thing is that I keep working on improving
myself. In life you have to be ready to learn new things every day,
and that applies to me especially."
Managing expectations
Mkhitaryan has played a unique role in the Borussia team this season.
Recruited as the club's flagship signing last summer, he was given the
unofficial task of replacing Mario Götze, who left the Schwarz-Gelben
for Bayern in the same transfer window. That he would fill the void
left by perhaps Germany's most talented player in a generation was
never certain, but the 2012/13 Ukrainian league's top goalscorer
speaks positively on how he has fared in doing so.
"I spoke a lot with Jürgen Klopp and my team-mates [about dealing with
the expectations], and they all said to me, 'We know the talent you
have and what you can do. All you need to do is free yourself of what
people say.' Right from the first day they gave me the feeling that
they trusted in me, and that was a massive help for me when it came to
dealing with difficult situations. The togetherness I have with my
team-mates has been incredible."
At home in Dortmund
Looking back on his first season in Dortmund, there is much for
Mkhitaryan to ponder over with pride, yet you sense that there will be
no resting on his laurels. Reading his comments after the Real Madrid
game, the pats on the back he has received from his coach and
teammates, the rises and dips in his form in 2013/14 and the touching
personal story of how his father's untimely death inspired him to
become a footballer, Mkhitaryan junior would probably agree he is a
sensitive character, ruled by his emotions and a desire to constantly
prove himself.
In a city, then, "whose unique and unbelievable fans" live and breathe
football, in a stadium like the Signal Iduna Park that feeds off
emotion unlike anywhere else and under a coach famed for his
incredible man-management, he appears to be a perfect fit for
Borussia. It is not unrealistic to believe he could render Götze's
name completely forgotten in the seasons to come.
Bernie Reeves
http://www.bundesliga.com/en/liga/news/2013/0000295088.php
May 25 2014
More to come from Mkhitaryan
Dortmund - "When I received the ball from Marco Reus, I thought to
myself, 'Right this is it: if I don't score this, I may as well pack
up and go home.' And when it went in, I said to myself, 'Why can I
score here but not against Real Madrid?'"
It was a period of four days in April that goes a long way to summing
up Henrikh Mkhitaryan's first season in the Bundesliga. Bearing the
guilt of missing three good opportunities to take Borussia Dortmund's
UEFA Champions League quarter-final second leg to extra time, he
recovered to score the opening goal in a 3-0 win away at Bundesliga
champions FC Bayern München in the Allianz Arena on Matchday 30.
Campaign of contrasts
>From agony to ecstasy in a short space of time, the two episodes were
the clearest examples of the range of emotions Mkhitaryan has
experienced in 2013/14, a season peppered with peaks and troughs for
the 25-year-old. There were his debut strikes at Eintracht Frankfurt,
a period of eight games between November and January when he wasn't
involved in a single goal, that stunning win in Munich, and finally
the
DFB Cup final on May 17, when he was substituted after 60 minutes in
an eventual 2-0 loss to Bayern after extra time.
The Armenian international admits it is the Madrid game that still
haunts him, however. After losing their last eight first leg in the
Spanish capital 3-0, a Reus double had Real rocking, but the Spaniards
scraped through to the last four with the help of some ill-timed
profligacy from Mkhitaryan. "It was an unhappy moment in my life," he
told newspaper welt.de reflectively. "People watching must have
thought I was trying to miss, when in fact I was the guy on the pitch
who wanted to score most. Sometimes life is like that, though."
Back on the horse
Despite the pain of that evening, he managed to pick himself back up
through a combination of his own will-power and some encouraging words
from those around him. "We have a saying in Armenia: Sometimes God
lets you fall, so that you learn to appreciate things when they
eventually improve", to which his coach Jürgen Klopp was also able to
add some of his wisdom after warmly embracing the Yerevan-born star in
the aftermath of the defeat to the eventual 2014 Champions League
winners. "He told me to keep my head up and not feel down, that there
would be moments like this in my career and that I'd come back
stronger for it."
Indeed, as acute as his disappointment may have been, Mkhitaryan
succeeded in regaining his belief that the skills which convinced BVB
to sign him in the first place would eventually assert themselves once
more. As well as helping the club reach Berlin with a goal in the Cup
semi-final against VfL Wolfsburg, he also netted three times and
assisted once in the final five games of the season to finish with
nine goals and ten assists, an impressive record indeed for a player
new to the rigours of Germany's top flight.
Adaptation required
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Mkhitaryan, who joined from Ukrainian side FC
Shakhtar Donetsk, readily admits that becoming accustomed to football
in Germany has been his most daunting challenge, and one that he is
still some way off fully mastering. "The biggest problem I had was
that I came from a league which you can't compare with the Bundesliga.
At Shakhtar, matches often panned out the same way: the opposition
defended deep, we always had the ball and if we scored first, the game
was practically decided. In Germany that's not how it is. The teams
are more evenly matched and even sides in the bottom half can put you
under a lot of pressure.
"And then there's our own system that changes, sometimes even during
matches," Mkhitaryan continues. "Sometimes we'll dominate games with
possession and aggressive pressing high up the pitch, other times
we'll play on the counter-attack, so I have to be 100 per cent alert
all the time. Sometimes I'm able to score or assist goals, sometimes
not, but the important thing is that I keep working on improving
myself. In life you have to be ready to learn new things every day,
and that applies to me especially."
Managing expectations
Mkhitaryan has played a unique role in the Borussia team this season.
Recruited as the club's flagship signing last summer, he was given the
unofficial task of replacing Mario Götze, who left the Schwarz-Gelben
for Bayern in the same transfer window. That he would fill the void
left by perhaps Germany's most talented player in a generation was
never certain, but the 2012/13 Ukrainian league's top goalscorer
speaks positively on how he has fared in doing so.
"I spoke a lot with Jürgen Klopp and my team-mates [about dealing with
the expectations], and they all said to me, 'We know the talent you
have and what you can do. All you need to do is free yourself of what
people say.' Right from the first day they gave me the feeling that
they trusted in me, and that was a massive help for me when it came to
dealing with difficult situations. The togetherness I have with my
team-mates has been incredible."
At home in Dortmund
Looking back on his first season in Dortmund, there is much for
Mkhitaryan to ponder over with pride, yet you sense that there will be
no resting on his laurels. Reading his comments after the Real Madrid
game, the pats on the back he has received from his coach and
teammates, the rises and dips in his form in 2013/14 and the touching
personal story of how his father's untimely death inspired him to
become a footballer, Mkhitaryan junior would probably agree he is a
sensitive character, ruled by his emotions and a desire to constantly
prove himself.
In a city, then, "whose unique and unbelievable fans" live and breathe
football, in a stadium like the Signal Iduna Park that feeds off
emotion unlike anywhere else and under a coach famed for his
incredible man-management, he appears to be a perfect fit for
Borussia. It is not unrealistic to believe he could render Götze's
name completely forgotten in the seasons to come.
Bernie Reeves
http://www.bundesliga.com/en/liga/news/2013/0000295088.php