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Marcus Thuram wants to attack again after his injury
Photo:
Lars Baron / Getty Images
Marcus Thuram's season ended on the operating table.
With an ankle injury from the game at Bayern in June, the Frenchman said goodbye to the season prematurely, a wound that then accompanied the French over the summer and made preparations for the season more difficult.
Now, in the new season, the Gladbach attacker should build on the time before his injury as a striker who not only shaped the game of his team, but also the league.
Thuram was undoubtedly one of the players of the 2019/2020 season.
The 22-year-old only needed one season to become both a top performer and a darling of the public at Borussia-Park.
In Mönchengladbach, fan hearts tend to go to longtime loyal companions, the rustic Tony Jantschke, the aging Oscar Wendt, to whom the fans have dedicated numerous verses because his last name rhymes so well with many other words.
The man at the corner flag
Thuram caught up with them within a season.
Which is not only due to his ritual of celebrating one of the teammates as the match winner with his jersey on the corner flag after every victory.
For Gladbach's manager Max Eberl, this development came as no great surprise.
Thuram is "a special type", that was already noticed when he was in Mönchengladbach for a meeting, Eberl told SPIEGEL.
His father Lilian, who is also his advisor, accompanied him back then, and Thuram Senior is not just anyone: world champion, European champion, France's record international player, and "a committed person who thinks outside the box", as Eberl says.
Lilian Thuram has always opened her mouth, even as a professional, has spoken out against racism and positioned himself politically.
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Thuram kneels after the game against Union Berlin
Photo: MARTIN MEISSNER / AFP
His son seems to have noticed a lot, not just the first name, which he received as the middle name after Marcus in the baptismal register.
When Lilian and Marcus Thuram were convinced of the realities in Borussia-Park, "father and son also discussed a lot with each other," said Eberl.
Then it became clear to him: "Here we get a totally reflected and clear person."
Thuram's kneeling after Borussia’s home game against Union Berlin to show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement has been remembered as a picture.
The pressure of expectation is high
The expectations before his second season are correspondingly high, the pressure is significantly higher compared to the previous season.
He himself set the standard by which he will be measured in the future.
In good time before the opening game at Borussia Dortmund (Saturday 6.30 p.m., live ticker SPIEGEL; TV: Sky) - an opponent that Gladbachers traditionally prefer to avoid - Thuram has reported fit again.
After such a long break, you can hardly imagine that he is already back at his top level.
Thuram's greatest strength immediately catches the eye: his speed.
According to the official Bundesliga data, he achieved the sixth highest top speed of all Bundesliga players in the preseason at 35.6 kilometers per hour.
Only Kingsley Coman (Bayern Munich), Kingsley Ehizibue (1. FC Cologne), Moussa Diaby (Bayer Leverkusen), Achraf Hakimi (Borussia Dortmund) and Alphonso Davies (Bayern Munich) sprinted faster.
Thuram has one facet ahead of all these players: his physical strength.
The 1.92 meter tall Thuram weighs around 90 kilograms.
The Frenchman not only combines speed and physical strength, but also technical finesse: Thuram leads the ball extensively on the foot, attracts the opponents, and then leaves them standing with a quick turn and a short sprint.
In France still coming from the piano
At his ex-club EA Guingamp, he used these strengths on the left wing.
As a wing runner, he should fool opponents, pick up speed and come to an end.
Gladbach's coach Marco Rose, on the other hand, sees him as a striker, a goalscorer.
In the full sprint, Thuram can often be seen starting from the left half-space towards the gate.
When sprinting into the penalty area, his speed gives him the decisive millimeter lead in order to reach flat flanks in front of the defenders in the five-meter area.
He scored six of his ten goals this season from the five-meter space, only Wolfsburg's Wout Weghorst scored as many goals in this zone.
The Frenchman fits perfectly into the Gladbacher's game system.
These rely on a lot of force in the attack, the ball should be played deep.
There are long periods of ball possession in Gladbach too.
As soon as they play the ball in the opposing half, the attack should be played to the end quickly and directly.
Thuram not only has the necessary speed for this.
Thanks to his strengths in one-on-one, he can also dribble out opponents and thus create space for his teammates.
He has already set eight goals.
He was Gladbach's second most important preparer, only Alassane Pléa prepared more goals (ten goals).
But that was last season.
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