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"I need to rest".
Marc André Ter Stegen called the German coach, Hansi Flick, and asked him not to call him up last summer to play in the Nations League.
Before, he had already talked about it with his coach, Xavi Hernández: "It will be good for me for a while without competing or having to work on recovering from an injury."
Then, with the approval of his two technicians, Ter Stegen forgot about football.
“They say goalkeepers are crazy, but Marc is boring because of how normal he is.
I wouldn't go on vacation with him”, says a Barça employee with a laugh.
The German planned a break near Barcelona.
He didn't want big trips or too busy destinations.
With his wife, Dani, and his son, Ben, Ter Stegen visited his family in Germany, toured the south of France and spent a few days at his house in Ibiza.
He practiced yoga,
he read business and investment books and barbecued.
The result?
Ter Stegen met Ter Stegen again: "My season is good and the fans notice it".
"I don't know how long it had been since Marc had so much time to rest," they remark from the German's environment.
After passing through all the lower categories of the Mannschaft, Ter Stegen joined the absolute in 2012. Since then, whenever he was not with his team, he dedicated his summers to recovering from an injury, especially painful those of 2020 and 2021, when he wanted to forget about his right knee.
After the absurdity of Lisbon (2-8 against Bayern in the Champions League), the German went through Ramon Cugat's operating room to have surgery on his patellar tendon.
A year later, he traveled to Sweden, this time under the command of Hakan Alfredson, to purge the discomfort that still persisted in the knee.
The stress of the operations, added to the lack of rest, sapped the German's confidence.
His percentage of saves, in Ronald Koeman's premiere season, after the first operation, was 67.74%.
Ter Stegen was on an emotional slide.
At the beginning of the 2021-2022 campaign, his numbers dropped to 62.16% (Koeman) and 55.56% (Sergi Barjuán).
He, in any case, defended himself.
“People always have opinions and have more knowledge than others, there are even people who know more than me.
I have a responsibility with the team, with myself and with the club”, justified the goalkeeper publicly.
In private, he was more forceful.
"If I play, it's because I'm fine.
If not, I would ask not to.
I am not going to harm my teammates, ”he explained.
His statistics were far from what had been his best course until then: a 76,
But when everything was getting dark for Ter Stegen and, even, when some in the sports management welcomed his departure —"he is one of the few players who has a market", they said—, Xavi appeared in Barcelona.
“He has a very clear idea and we hadn't done it this way for years.
He has recovered what we wanted.
He does it spectacularly”, the German praised his coach.
Barça changed the way of defending and the goalkeepers changed the way of training.
“Now, while one of the three goalkeepers works with Dela [José Ramón de la Fuente, Barça's goalkeeping coach], the other two do strength work with the physical trainer.
With weights and rubber bands, they exercise trunks, buttocks... All the stabilizers that goalkeepers need”, explains a coach from the Ciudad Deportiva.
“Marc was aware that we had to improve in goal”, said Xavi.
And Ter Stegen responded this season with a save percentage of 77.14%, the best of his career.
In the League, he has one goal against in eight duels.
"Let's see if he wins the Zamora", a Barça employee enthuses.
“He is not interested in individual awards;
he wants titles ”, they counterattack from Marc's entourage. Not even the defensive disaster in Europe (seven goals in four games) diminishes Ter Stegen's confidence.
"You have to improve," he asks.
The key, for the goalkeeper and his group in the locker room -De Jong, Lewandowski and Memphis-, is to consolidate the group.
“You don't have to be friends, but you do have to have unity on the pitch.
Grow as a team, not only in football”, they point out.
“It seems that it was a matter of him resting”, they conclude at Barça.
At 30 years old, 339 games and a contract until 2025, the German wants to forge his Barça legend.
The challenge goes through the Bernabéu.
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