Julian Brandt is enjoying his last few weeks in a Borussia Dortmund shirt before the end of his seven-year spell – with a love of playing and without thinking too much about the future.
There aren’t many opportunities left, and perhaps that’s why Julian Brandt’s enjoyment of playing was so noticeable. Against his former club Bayer Leverkusen, Dortmund’s director was back in the starting eleven after a good month, running in and waving once again, hearing his surname shouted out from 80,000 throats.
It was the 29-year-old’s third last home game for BVB. His departure in the summer after seven years together has long been decided. And so, especially in the first half, Brandt whirled across his turf as he does: with his hair blowing, a lot of feeling in his feet and always on the lookout for spaces, teammates and opportunities. A slightly skewed finish here, a good shift there, all with the light-footedness that only players whose friendship with the ball has long been intimate have.
It would be easy to get sentimental after a game like this, regardless of the result, performance and other circumstances. But the joy of soccer still prevails. “At some point, you’re bound to feel a little nostalgic, but I don’t feel like I’m on a farewell trip or a farewell tour,” Brandt says on Sky, on the contrary: “I enjoy playing here, I enjoy playing in other stadiums, I basically enjoy doing this job as long as I’m fit.”
And then, as a poetic pragmatist, a sentence for the proverb collection: “In the end, everything in life comes to an end at some point.” And, as we all know, that is always a new beginning. However, the former national team player has not yet pushed ahead with his search for a new club. There is no rush, and it obviously doesn’t feel right for him yet.
His future? Brandt is not ruling anything out and has “lots of ideas”
“There’s no need to rush things,” concludes Brandt: “We’re slowly approaching the end of the season, but we still have important games ahead of us. It wouldn’t be fair to the club to hold talks everywhere at once.” So the clear plan is: “You have to finish this cleanly and then you have enough time to think about how to proceed.” And he is “not at all worried” about this “how”.
European foreign countries, the Bundesliga, transcontinental adventures: the doors are open and Brandt does not want to close any of them prematurely. “Basically, I’m not ruling anything out,” he says: “But there are things that I prefer, and there are things that I can’t really imagine at the moment.” So there are already “one or two thoughts” and also the desire to close the Dortmund chapter first and then start a new one: “Everything in order.”
A few days before his 30th birthday, he doesn’t want to be more specific. “Let yourself be surprised,” is the mischievous answer to the Sky question. Just this much: “There are lots of ideas. Not every idea is good, but there are lots of ideas.”