Robin Gosens made it from the Lower Rhine League to the Champions League. With Atalanta Bergamo, the German wants to make a "dream come true" against Valencia. In Germany, too, they now have the man with the unusual career in mind.
Rome (AP) - The "awesome" feeling of standing on the court and hearing the Champions League anthem - Robin Gosens can soon get goosebumps again. The German has become something of a secret soccer star.
The defender will face Italian first division and surprise club Atalanta Bergamo in the round of 16 against FC Valencia on Wednesday - a historic event for the Italians and Gosens.
The team came in the top 16 in their first participation in the Champions League. At the same time, the team is only the second in the history of the premier class, which reached the round of 16 after three defeats at the start.
"When I heard the hymn, I thought: 'Dude, what is that? What are you doing here anyway?" Gosens told the podcast "kicker meets DAZN" about his appearances in the Champions League preliminary round. "I had goose bumps that couldn't go away. I still had them at the kick-off." It was a "dream" to play against top-class players, such as in the preliminary round at Manchester City by Pep Guardiola.
Juventus, Inter, Naples? No, Atalanta Bergamo is making a name for itself in Italy. In the Serie A, the team from the pretty city near Milan is currently in fourth place. Gosens has already scored eight goals this season, mind you as a defender. A top performance.
Reason enough for the man from the Lower Rhine to talk to each other in his German homeland. "My biggest dream is still the Bundesliga and Schalke the club that I'm still a fan of," he said in an interview with Spox and Goal. Vague rumors recently circulated about an interest from RB Leipzig and even from Bayern.
Gosen's career was not straightforward, he actually wanted to be a police officer. Born in Emmerich on the Dutch border, he then played in the Lower Rhine League with VfL Rhede. He failed during trial training at Borussia Dortmund. Instead, he began his professional career in the Netherlands, where he played first in the second division and then with Heracles Almelo in the division of honor. Since 2017 he has been in Italy in Bergamo, a city on the Italian Alps with around 120,000 inhabitants and a city wall that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The goddess, "La Dea", is what fans call her football club. Gosens reports that when he walks through the city, "it doesn't go entirely without recognition". "Totally crazy," he says.
Gosens obviously wants to stay grounded. "If I buy a body lotion for 16 euros because it smells so hot, I will question myself," quoted the "Süddeutsche Zeitung". "Then I think I could have got it now for 1.99."
Now Germany has also noticed him. Record national player Lothar Matthäus recently said that he would "like to see Gosens in the circle of the German national team". "He is dangerous and one that I see almost in the international class," explained Matthäus. He doesn't know why national coach Joachim Löw shouldn't even test him. Löw is not unknown to the defender either. "Assume that we have already seen him," said Löw last in mid-January.
Gosens is self-confident. "Not that I expect Jogi Löw to call," he said in the soccer podcast. But it is also not the case that "I am too far away from the national team". "I already have the ambition to recommend myself for this." There is hardly a better stage for this than the Champions League.
Statements in the kicker
Atalanta Twitter
Podcast with Gosens
