“Everybody was just hugging and kissing us,” remembers Alfredo Morales through the fog of the last few sleepless days. He was speaking to the Guardian last month after his team, FC Ingolstadt, won promotion to the Bundesliga for the first time in their history. “Yeah, it was an unbelievable moment. The referee blows the whistle at the end of the game and our fans came onto the field and it was like pure emotion and passion for the sport.”
USMNT’s 25-year-old defender-turned-midfielder has won promotion every second year this decade. Never has it felt like it did this time around, with Bayern Munich’s new neighbours FC Ingolstadt.
Morales was born in Berlin and grew up playing the game on the same streets that produced the likes of Kevin Prince Boateng. On Wednesday, he is in the USA squad to face the country of his birth. Like Boateng, he graduated to the youth academy of Hertha Berlin, the biggest club in the German capital, though their recent record is unworthy of that title. Twice this decade, Berlin was the only capital in Europe without a team in the top-flight of its own national league, and Hertha’s yo-yoing form coincided with Morales’ rise up the ranks.
But this third promotion is by far the sweetest for Morales, even if he is a long way from home. Two years ago, to the surprise of all around him, he decided he had to leave the city and the club he loved. Everybody said he was a great young player, but he felt like he was being starved of opportunities, and it wasn’t always clear why.
And so he moved to Ingolstadt. It’s a town an hour up the road from Munich and it has never had a team in the Bundesliga before. In fact, when two local terms merged to form this club early last decade, one was in the sixth division and the other in the fifth.
What Ingolstadt does have, like Detroit had Ford, is Audi. And the car maker was investing heavily in the club. There’s a new stadium, new facilities, a new academy. Most importantly, Morales sensed there was also a new opportunity for him to prove himself in an ambitious, up-and-coming club.
It’s why promotion never felt like this before. “Because first of all for me, I play every game, I’m a big part of the team. And, yes!” – days after the achievement, he is still effusive – “The team is unbelievable. I don’t know how to say this. I still can’t believe it, but, yeah, we played the best season.
“We are such a good group together, we have so many characters and everything. Unbelievable team spirit. Yes, I’m very happy to share this, this moment now with the guys.”
Audi’s parent company is Volkswagen, and so Ingolstadt’s promotion means VW will have a stake in three Bundesliga teams next year. It owns Wolfsburg outright. It owns a slice of Bayern Munich. Its stake in Ingolstadt seems to be greater than the 20% it has on paper. It also sponsors a number of other clubs.
For a league that prides itself on not being the plaything of the mega-rich, it is causing a few raised eyebrows (though only outside of league headquarters). There’s also concerns over potential conflicts of interest – what if, say, Bayern need a 6-0 victory over a mid-table Ingolstadt in the final game of the season to claim the title?
It’s a sign of the changing times in the Bundesliga, but from Morales’ insider perspective, Ingolstadt’s success has been built, not bought. “It’s not like Leipzig, when you have Red Bull as a sponsor and you pay eight million [euros] for one player and it’s the second division. It’s unbelievable. For a lot of people it doesn’t make sense.
“[Our success] doesn’t mean that next year year we spend so much money that maybe we can go to Europa League or Champions League, like Wolfsburg. The good thing in Ingolstadt is that they really have a plan and they don’t want Audi to give money and buy everything. It’s not like this. We just want to build something and create something and this is why I came here two years ago.”
They are so focussed on building things “step-by-step” that Morales worries they might be running ahead of schedule. By comparison, Leipzig recently fired a coach this season for daring to say the team didn’t have to win promotion in its first year in the second division.
“Maybe the promotion was a little bit too early. Not that nobody didn’t want it, but you know what I mean. But we just want to keep going, on this path we go now, and yeah, I think next year will be very difficult.”
Before then though, he has other work to do. His form should be good enough to get him a spot in the USMNT squad for the Gold Cup in July. And this week he will line up for the US – the country of his father – against Germany in Cologne.
So will he celebrate if he scores?
“I think it’s going to be a lot of emotion and, of course, its very, very important for me to play against Germany. I was born in Germany, I spend my whole life here, I have my family and friends, everybody is German. I’m so thankful that I just grew up here. And of course, Germany, they won the World Cup, and right now they are maybe the best team in the world.
“I have this relationship to Germany, but I never play for Germany, and for me, it’s just always an unbelievable honour to represent the United States, my country. So, yes, of course, if you score a goal, of course you have to celebrate.
“With the national teams and the club teams, it’s a little bit different, because when I think about playing against Hertha Berlin with Ingolstadt next season and I score in Berlin next season, it’s totally different. Because the club they gave me so much, my whole education, everything, I got from them. So this is kind of different.”
The Gold Cup will be extremely disruptive to his pre-season with Ingolstadt, and Morales says it could even cost him his spot in the team. But he’s so hungry to prove himself in front of American crowds that he doesn’t care.
“Of course I want to be here in Ingolstadt, and I want to play Bundesliga, and if I miss the pre-season, its very hard to get your spot. On the other hand, I want to play this Gold Cup. And I want to be there and I think I have a chance to be there.
“Like I said, I say it so often, I’m so hungry about everything right now. And I’m really looking forward for the Gold Cup, and I really want to play there. This is something special, to play this. We want to win this Gold Cup, and we have the chance to win this cup. And in USA too. You have to take this chance, so for me, I want to be there.”
