Joel Matip: a European champion made in the Bundesliga
Joel Matip has called time on his playing days at 33 due to injury but the UEFA Champions League winner can look back with pride on a career that began to blossom at German giants Schalke.
There was no keeping quiet the rise of the teenaged Matip through Schalke's youth ranks with the skillful centre-back steered ever onwards and upwards by the guiding hand of the Royal Blues' Norbert Elgert, the man who played a fundamental role at the start of the careers of the likes of Mesut Özil, Leroy Sane, Julian Draxler, and Sead Kolasinac among so many others.
"Joel has enormous potential. It's not for nothing he's already training frequently with the first team." Thus spoke former Schalke reserve-team coach Oliver Ruhnert, who was rubbing his hands contentedly at the thought of Matip bolstering his side, then playing in German football's fourth tier. "The idea is that he has more playing time with me now." Great idea for all concerned, but with one fundamental flaw: Matip was too good for the reserves.
Three weeks after making his debut for Ruhnert in mid-October 2009, first-team boss Felix Magath put his faith in Matip in the biggest way of all. "He played a fantastic first half, carried out his task brilliantly," said one of German football's most demanding coaches after throwing the 18-year-old into the deepest of ends in a game against Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga. "He was also very good in the second half, and made some assured passes," Magath added.
One thing Magath didn't allude to was that Matip also got his team's goal in a 1-1 draw against the might Bavarians. "I'm happy the coach gave me this chance," said the then softly spoken teenager. "He said I should give everything and do my job."
Twelve league games later, Matip had taken care of business promisingly enough to earn a three-and-a-half-year contract as he juggled training sessions with Magath — learning from the experienced pros he was set to replace, Heiko Westermann and Marcelo Bordon — while also continuing his studies.
But even before he would face his school-leaving exam, another significant test would arrive. Paul Le Guen — the former Paris Saint-Germain and France international midfielder, then-Cameroon boss — was on the phone to try to convince the youngster the African nation of his father and not Germany should benefit from his talents at senior international level.
"We are already dealing with the issue and we ideally want to convince every good player to play for Germany," said the DFB's then-technical director Matthias Sammer as Matip's birth nation scrambled for the starlet. Germany U19 coach Horst Hrubesch also applied pressure: "It would be a shame if the issue of Matip was resolved with his call-up for the African Nations Cup."
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The ex-Germany striker was to be disappointed as by January 2010, just over two months since his first-team debut at Schalke, Matip was the youngest member of the Indomitable Lions' squad at the Africa Cup of Nations in Angola.
"We have been watching him a lot and he has played some very good games," Hrubesch had said, and his regrets at missing out on Matip must have worsened in the coming months as he continued pulling performances out of the top drawer in a Royal Blue shirt.
Known as 'Jimmy' at the Veltins Arena, Matip succeeded in forming the league's youngest centre-back pairing with Kyriakos Papadopoulos — six months his junior — and kept local hero Benedikt Höwedes and established ex-Borussia Dortmund and Real Madrid defender Christoph Metzelder on the fringes.
His poise and precision on the ball meant that some of the 194 league appearances he made for Schalke were in midfield, often replacing ex-USA international Jermaine Jones in front of the back four, while he also accumulated invaluable European experience in the Champions League and Europa League, and helped S04 win the 2010/11 DFB Cup.
"He has played some good games as a number six, but for me he has all the qualities to be an excellent centre-back. He's quick, good in the air, and calmly deals with critical one-on-one situations," said a won-over Horst Heldt, then Schalke's sporting director. "With his speed, he leaves opponents standing. He really reminds me of Lucio."
High praise indeed, but like the ex-Bayer Leverkusen, Bayern and Brazil international defender, Matip was also prone to the odd error, the inevitable growing pains of a man who attempts to play — not punt — his way out of trouble.
Those mistakes that infrequently crept into his game and followed him to England when he moved to Anfield in 2016 were ruthlessly and definitively ironed out under Jürgen Klopp. Current Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk once said of Matip, "I'm delighted for him that he's at this level. The way he is performing is unbelievable." The words followed Liverpool's remarkable 4-0 win against Barcelona in the Champions League semi-final second leg of 2019, a result that took Jürgen Klopp's side into the tournament showpiece, which they won to lift the trophy. "If you look at the second game against Barcelona, his performance at home was unbelievable," Van Dijk added.
His Champions League winner's medal was part of a list of career honours Matip enjoyed during a career that began in the youth teams of SC Weitmar 45 and Bochum. Along with the aforementioned DFB Cup win, he also earned English Premier League glory and UEFA Super Cup success, among other triumphs.
In all, Matip played 258 times for Schalke, scoring 23 goals and providing 14 assists. He wore the red of Liverpool 201 times and was capped 27 times by Cameroon, scoring once.
In quotes appearing on Liverpool's website after Matip called time on his stay at the club last May, former Mainz and Dortmund favourite Klopp said, "In all the years that I have been involved in football, I am not sure I have come across too many players who are more loved than Joel Matip. I'm not even sure it would be possible to say anything bad about him. A wonderful professional, a wonderful footballer and a wonderful human being - we have been blessed to have him with us for as long as we have."
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