Much has been written about Thomas Delaney since his move to the Weser. The charismatic midfielder has been portrayed in numerous ways. Delaney has justified the intense interest in him with a number of convincing performances on the pitch and he is definitely an asset to SV Werder. However what about those things you do not know about the 24-year-old?
WERDER.DE talks to Thomas Delaney in a “Four-Four-Two” interview. In answer to four footballing questions, four personal questions and two slightly outside-the-box questions, the Dane talks about how difficult his mother tongue is, his Irish roots and a character trait of his that really annoys him.
# As a young boy, I always wanted to play like…
“… a bit like Pirlo or Gattuso. Andrea Pirlo’s technique and Gennaro Gattuso’s power. That would be the perfect mix.”
# The most impressive stadium you’ve ever played in…
“… Purely the size of the Santiago Bernabéu in Madrid but the Champions League game against Galatasaray in Istanbul was easily the most incredible due to the atmosphere. It was so loud and so many people were going nuts. It was a pretty hostile atmosphere, just absolutely crazy.”
“ My most difficult times as a footballer...
“... were as captain of Copenhagen. That was very tough for me. In my eyes I didn’t do that much. I was still very young and inexperienced; it was not my best period.”
# The most exciting person I’ve got to know in football...
“That is a really difficult question (ponders). I’ve got to know some really amazing players but also played with some very calm, relaxed personalities. I had a teammate in Copenhagen called Tom Högli. All of us in the team were sire that he will become a politician after his career. He is really smart, very calm and extremely diplomatic and friendly to all people. That is impressive.”
# A good thing to eat for me...
“... pasta. I love pasta! But maybe I’ve been eating slightly too much pasta. It’s easy to eat pasta with Bolognese very quickly as a footballer. At the training camp, pasta. On matchday, pasta. But even though there was Bolognese at the training camp, the best is obviously cooked by myself. What goes into it is a secret (laughs). I also like going to a good Italian. You can eat in brilliant places in Copenhagen. In my eyes, the city is one of the top five places in the world for going out.”
# The Irish in me is...
“... the hair. I don’t drink much beer or go singing in the pub (laughs). I don’t have much of an affiliation with Ireland. These roots on my side of the family go far back in the 19th century.”
# The character trait that annoys you most...
“... is that I am sometimes very disorganised in my private life. Luckily my wife helps me with that.”
# One thing about me that nobody knows...
“Okay, then I’m going to have to reveal the secret and most important ingredient in the Bolognese. It’s butter (laughs).”
# The most complicated German word that you’ve learnt…
“…is ‘genau’. Perhaps it’s not the most difficult word to say, but I’ve never quite understood exactly what it means. It seems it has a wide range of meanings and people use it all the time for everything! I use it for ‘ok’, ‘I’m doing it’, basically for everything but without knowing exactly what it means.”
# And the most complicated Danish word…
… “That’s an obvious one for me: ‘Atomkraftværknedsmeltning’. When translated, it means a nuclear power station going into meltdown. I even find that one quite difficult.”
