Maybe Germany are playing only San Marino and maybe Mesut Özil has also been given a rest by Joachim Löw but there are still better places for a player to learn he has lost his place in the national squad than the press room at Liverpool’s training ground.
Emre Can was just coming to the end of a chat with the Sunday newspapers when a routine question about winning back his place in the Germany squad caught him slightly off guard. Löw had only just made his announcement. “I’m not in there? Maybe the manager will call me or send me a message. Of course I want to get back into the Germany squad.”
Apologies, Emre. No one likes to be the bearer of bad tidings, however unintentionally. The Liverpool midfielder was in the Germany squad for Euro 2016 but a combination of missing much of pre-season and picking up an early injury led to him losing his place at Anfield. Can was so immense towards the end of last season it was hard to imagine Jürgen Klopp doing anything else but building a side round him – he has often been described as the next Steven Gerrard – though it is equally important to remember he is 22 and still picking up experience.
“It is very nice to be compared to Steven Gerrard but I know I am not at the same level,” Can says with refreshing candour. “There is a long way to go there. I am trying to score more goals for a start. It is something I want to do. Last weekend I scored my first goal of the season but I had chances against Manchester United and West Brom and didn’t take them. My target is to score more goals, not necessarily be the next Steven Gerrard. Obviously my respect for him is very high but I want to go my own way. I want to be Emre Can, not copy other players.”
Can was on Merseyside long before his compatriot Klopp arrived and, though the pair appeared to strike up a bond almost immediately, the player confirms he knew little about Klopp before they started working together.
“We can talk in German now, he always says nice things about me, but to be honest I didn’t know too much about him,” Can says. “I played against his Dortmund team twice but I didn’t know him personally. I suppose I knew he had a reputation for being a little bit crazy and now I can see that’s true, but only in a positive way. That’s how he is.
“The main thing I remember from the Bundesliga is that it was never nice to play against his teams. They counterpressed, they made it hard for their opponents. If you had the ball, you would know the opponent was already coming and you would have to play it quickly. That is what I think teams are thinking when they have to play Liverpool now. If teams come to Anfield, I don’t think they will be expecting to get an easy game.
“I remember the manager saying in pre-season that the target was to be the fittest team in the league. If you look at the statistics, we are the best for high intensity. We run a lot of kilometres. It takes time to adapt to the playing style that the manager wants but he has been here a year now, we know exactly what he wants us to do and so far it seems to be working.”
Watford are the next team to put that theory to the test, the same Watford who beat Liverpool 3-0 at Vicarage Road last season and sit comfortably in the top half of the Premier League table. “Every year in the Premier League every team is improving,” Can says. “Every team is buying new players. We bought new players as well, some very good ones, but I think the competition here is tougher than it is in Germany. In the Bundesliga you have Bayern Munich and then Dortmund and they win it every year. In Germany it is difficult to imagine a team like Leicester City winning the title. I always say the Premier League is the best in the world and I still feel it is an honour to be playing here but I think English football suits my game. Football is more physical here, the ref is not whistling every foul. I think it is better like that. It is good for me anyway. I think the game might be quicker here as well.”
Can need no longer feel quite as alone in his admiration of English football. At the last count there were a couple of dozen Germans plying their trade in the Premier League. “That’s a lot,” he says. “I’m happy to see other Germans in this country but I didn’t know there were that many.” One compatriot Can will not be bumping into is Bastian Schweinsteiger, a national hero in Germany but frozen out at Manchester United. Can sympathises, having known Schweinsteiger at Bayern Munich as well as within the national squad. “I know Bastian very well, he’s a very good guy. He’s more than that actually, I think you can say he’s a legend. I don’t know what has happened at Manchester United and I don’t understand the reasons, but I don’t think they can have too much respect for him.
“It is a pity, because he is a great guy, someone who worked hard and is always a gentleman. When I came up into the first team at Bayern he was the first one who said if you need something come to me, and that was a big help.”
