![]() But those boys, and that time in my life, and those little stories … I will never forget them. This is one thing about football that people don’t always understand. I am pretty sure that I gave this speech in 2011 before we won 3–1, and that certainly makes for a much better story! But I can’t be 100% sure. I honestly cannot be sure if we won or lost the match. But we get up the next morning and we go again.ĭo you know what is the strangest part of that story? We think we’re giving the greatest speech in the history of football, and we’re actually talking complete nonsense. And the manager has been screaming about Soviet technology and Siberia for the last 10 minutes! Hahahaha! Can you believe this? I had to start my whole speech over from scratch. Maybe the most important match of some of the players’ lives. Everyone else, “Nope, sorry, boss.” My entire speech - nonsense! This is the most important match of the season. Please raise your hand if you know who is Rocky Balboa?” Only two hands went up. They’re looking at me like, What in the world is this crazy man talking about? So then I realised, Wait, when did Rocky IV come out, 1980-something? When were these boys born? Finally, I said, “Wait a minute, boys. I was expecting them to be standing up on their chairs, ready to go run up a mountain in Siberia, going absolutely crazy.īut everyone is just sitting there, staring at me with dead eyes. But we have the passion! We have the heart of a champion! We can do the impossible!!!!!” I was going on and on, and then at some point, I look out to all my boys to see their reaction. And I told the boys, “You see? That’s us. He’s chopping down pine trees and carrying logs through the snow and running up to the top of the mountain. The best of everything! The best technology! The best machines! He’s unstoppable!” Then you see Rocky training in Siberia in his little log cabin. ![]() Remember that? I told the boys, “You see? Bayern Munich is Ivan Drago. Jürgen Kloppĭrago is running on the treadmill, and he’s hooked up to the big computer monitors and the scientists are studying him. In my opinion, they should show Rocky 1, 2, 3 and 4 in public schools all across the world. Then I started playing some scenes from Rocky IV on the video screen. I told them the truth of the situation: “The last time Dortmund won in Munich, most of you were still in your Pampers.” So the night before we played Bayern, I gathered all my players at the hotel for our team talk. If you watch these movies and you don’t want to climb to the top of a mountain, then I think something is wrong with you. I take a lot of inspiration from movies, so whenever I needed to motivate the boys I would always think of Rocky Balboa. We hadn’t won in Munich in something like 20 years. My Borussia Dortmund team were playing Bayern Munich. And when I was a young manager I failed a lot. The truth is that we all fail, constantly. As a Christian, I believe in only one God, and I can assure you that God has nothing to do with football. Because sometimes I am afraid that the outside world looks at footballers and managers like we’re Gods or something. I have to start with a slightly embarrassing story.
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