German Cup summary: R.B.
Leipzig - Hoffenheim 1:3 (Sport1)
"I didn't hesitate for a moment," Willie Urban said about a bone marrow donation he went through this week to try to help some patient he didn't know.
"I was surprised when they told me that I might be the potential donor, but I immediately wanted to start the process. I can help save a life with minimal effort, and I am hopeful that this will really lead to his full recovery," said the RB Leipzig captain.
The point is that this is a relatively complex medical operation, and a recovery lasting several days is required.
Therefore, it is expected that the stopper will be absent from the battle of the top against Union Berlin on Saturday (7:30 p.m., Sport3), and the Red Bulls will have to manage without him for the first time this season.
So far he has played Urban the full 90 minutes in all 19 rounds, and it will not be easy for Leipzig to face Union's physical edge in the strange East German derby, which has completely unexpectedly turned into an important battle in the fight for Champions League tickets.
And this is also an opportunity to focus on Orban, because his enormous contribution usually goes without media attention, while he deserves to be in the spotlight.
After all, this is one of the best brakes in the Bundesliga for many years.
Urban is very identified with the Red Bull project he joined in 2016, but this was really not his ambition, and the development resulted from the collapse of his truly beloved team - one of the most authentic and important in the history of German football.
Willy, or Willmosh as it was first recorded on the identity card, was born in Kaiserslautern to a Hungarian father and a Polish mother.
He naturally gravitated to the local club, which is admired by everyone in the area, and was accepted into its academy already when he was 4 years old, somewhere in 1997.
Just then the team began its sensational run to the championship with Otto Rahegel on the lines, and the connection became even more powerful.
Urban wanted to wear the uniform of the Red Devils of Lautern in the Bundesliga, and fulfilled this dream already when he was 18 years old.
Fulfilled the dream at the age of 18. Urban in Kaiserslautern (Photo: GettyImages, Thomas Langer)
In fact, he was defined as the most talented trainee of his generation, and coach Marco Kurz was happy to give him a debut in August 2011 when Bayern Munich were in the city and led 0:3.
The young stopper entered towards the end, suddenly ran in front of Franck Ribery and was in the seventh heaven even though he did not touch the ball at all.
Itay Shechter was on the pitch with him, and the Israeli striker was also there when Urban made his full debut in a loss to Nuremberg 3 months later.
But the team was already in a deep crisis at the bottom, Kurtz was soon fired, and Shechter didn't exactly deliver the goods.
Under these conditions, the young men - led by Urban - remained in the reserve team and saw how their club sank to last place on the way to the second league.
It was a sporting tragedy, and the Lautern fiasco came at a very unfortunate time in Urban's career.
He did the benefactor to try and return the team to its natural place in the Bundesliga, upgraded professionally, became a leader in the rear, was voted the team's outstanding player on behalf of the fans in the 2014/15 season, and was even called up from the second division to the youth team where he played alongside Marc-Andre ter Stegen.
But all his efforts were in vain, and at a certain point he realized that he could only make his way up in another group.
In the summer of 2015, Leipzig bought him for about 2 million euros, and the revered local boy turned from the most beloved player into a kind of traitor in the eyes of Lautern fans.
Urban was not moved by this.
He continues to follow the Red Devils, and was overjoyed when they were promoted from the third division to the second last season, but he is already on a completely different level.
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Rangnik built the defense around him.
Urban Leipzig (Photo: GettyImages, Alexander Hassenstein)
Leipzig was still in the second division when Orban signed their ranks at the express request of coach and sporting director Ralph Rangnik.
The professor built the defense around him, and there was no player who was more involved in the historic promotion campaign to the Bundesliga.
Along with him, by the way, the squad in question also included the Swedish midfielder Emil Forsberg, the Danish striker Yusuf Poelsen, the Hungarian goalkeeper Petar Golasci and the German defenders Marcel Halstenberg and Lucas Klostermann.
Everyone is still playing in the Red Bulls uniform, and the project is defined by many as artificial, but there are few teams that manage to keep the faithful skeleton for such a long period of time.
Of all of them, Urban stood out especially in his leadership skills - this is his most striking feature, and you can see it from afar.
That's why only two years after his arrival, at the age of 24, he already received the captain's armband from the coach at the time, Ralph Hasenhotel, which he wears to this day.
"The most important thing is to be stable," he says - and he maintains stability without compromise.
All the Leipzig bosses trusted him blindly, and he was always their banker, except in the 2019/20 season when a serious knee injury sidelined him for several months - he came back from it even better.
This quality made many commentators call for him to be called up to the national team, but the competition in Joachim Lev's squad was great, and he had no chance against Mats Hummels and Jerome Boateng.
In the end, he did not receive a single call from the national coach, and turned to the other options he had.
Already at the beginning of his career, the associations of Poland and Hungary offered him to join their ranks.
He chose the Hungarians in 2018 because there he was immediately defined as the most important player in the defense.
With Hungary, Orbán advanced to Euro 2020, and last year was also very successful for him in the Nations League, with two non-concussed victories over England including 0:4 at Wembley, and also an exciting 0:1 against Germany in a game that took place symbolically especially in Leipzig.
A successful choice in the team.
Urban in the uniform of Hungary (Photo: GettyImages, Thomas Langer)
And maybe it's a little surprising, but Orban's future in Leipzig has never been in doubt.
Bigger clubs have sometimes groped, but he feels at home with the Red Bulls, and two years ago extended his contract until 2025. "Willy leads us on the pitch and in the dressing room, and he is the symbol of the club. For the fans, he is a very central figure," said sporting director Marcus at the time Krosha, who in the meantime moved himself to Eintracht Frankfurt and is doing a great job there.
At the age of 30, it's reasonable to assume that Orbán will remain in Leipzig until the end of his career, unless Kaiserslautern return to the Bundesliga at some point - then he'll return home to complete the full circle.
The Red Bulls give him the opportunity to play in the Champions League every year, and this season he was on the pitch every minute in Europe as well.
In two weeks, he will face Manchester City in the round of 16, and by then he will have recovered from the bone marrow donation that made headlines these days.
It is important not only because of the specific case in which Orban himself may save one person's life.
Being a top footballer, and the fact that he will miss a very important game, brought the issue to the headlines, and the brakeman stated: "I wish more people would enter the reserves, so we could help more people."
While he will be unusually absent from the Leipzig defense against Union on Saturday, here too he has shown leadership - and his act may mean that more people can receive a bone marrow donation and recover from leukemia.
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Willy Urban
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