A decade after his goal at Maracanã against Argentina that gave Germany the World Cup title in Brazil, Mario Götze once again looks like the angelic-faced goalscorer who gave his country’s team its fourth star in 2014, now wearing the Eintracht Frankfurt shirt.
Götze knows the taste of football glories, savored in the 113th minute of that final against Argentina at the emblematic stadium in Rio de Janeiro, but he also experienced profound disappointments and declines in his game.
At a time described by the German media as the country’s weapon to counterbalance Messi, Götze failed to live up to the fabulous expectations generated around him.
After an unsuccessful transfer to Bayern Munich and a disappointing return to Borussia Dortmund, Götze attempted to straighten out his career at PSV Eindhoven, before returning to Germany with Eintracht in 2022.
At 32 years old, he faces the final phase of his career with an exciting challenge. The Frankfurt team is second in the Bundesliga and Götze could win the German championship with a third different team.
‘Very high expectations’
A product of Borussia Dortmund’s academy, Götze didn’t take long to stand out in the German national team’s youth ranks.
Winner of the Golden Boy award in 2011, he won two Bundesliga titles under Jürgen Klopp with the Ruhr region team before completing his move to Bayern, just days before both clubs were due to meet in the 2013 Champions League final.
A decision that earned him furious criticism from Dortmund fans. Klopp himself would go so far as to say that it was “a giant blow that I wasn’t prepared for”.
He entered football history with his goal in Brazil, but the protagonist would later recognize that it brought “very high expectations”.
Upon returning to Germany, he experienced the hardships of the reserve at Bayern under the command of Pep Guardiola.
In 2024, the player wrote a retrospective letter to his ‘self’ from years ago, in the book ‘Vozes do Eintracht Frankfurt’. In it, he recommended to the young Götze —who also had an offer from Barcelona— that he stay in Dortmund: “I know you won’t think much about it when I tell you, but stay in Dortmund a little longer. It will be good for you and your development.”
After returning home to Dortmund in 2016, the talented attacking midfielder spent months on the sidelines due to a metabolic disorder, coupled with the feeling of letting the fans down.
“If only I had lowered my own expectations, I would have allowed myself a breather and accepted a phase of weakness every now and then,” Götze told German publication Spiegel.
“If I could have imagined what my career would have been like, I would have scored that goal at 35 in my last tournament and then said ‘That’s it, I’m retiring’.
‘Like a grandfather’
In the Europa League, the competition they won in 2022, ‘Die Adler’ (The Eagles) are in third place, just behind Lazio and Athletic Club de Bilbao in the single group of 36 teams.
Eintracht hosts Augsburg on Saturday (7) in the 13th round of the German championship, before visiting French Lyon in the second main European continental competition.
Merely qualifying for the Champions League would be a reward for a club that has only played in it once and has not finished in the top four in the German league since 1993.
Götze maintains that instinct to score decisive goals. They demonstrated this again this season, for example, in the 1-0 victory against Werder Bremen.
With young teammates in attack like Omar Marmoush and Hugo Ekitike, after that victory against Bremen, Götze confessed: “I feel like a grandfather here.”
“We have a lot of young players. Good players, a lot of quality. There’s a lot of fun here. And that’s how it should always be: football and fun.”
