Captain of the Finnish national football team Lukas Hradecky has not lost in the German Bundesliga for an unfathomable 44 games.
The last time Hradecky left the field as a loser in the Bundesliga was in the final match of the second season against Bochum.
Hradecky was not on the field at the beginning of September, when Leverkusen’s 43-match unbeaten streak in the Bundesliga, which was historic in European terms, was broken against Leipzig.
The Finnish goalkeeper was sick at the time and could not play. Last season, Hradecky sat on the bench for one league match.
Hradecky has therefore had to leave the Bundesliga match between the posts with a defeat on his neck no less than 490 days ago.
On Saturday, however, the Finnish goalkeeper tries to destroy the man whom the Finnish national team legend Hannu Tihinen taught to play football. This is the head coach of the big German club Bayern Munich Vincent Kompany.
Tihinen has told such a story about Kompany to, among others, in 2007.
Tihinen laughed on Friday to Urheilu when he heard his confident words.
– Vincent was technically more talented and a little faster. He was more prepared and a better player, but I balanced things well. I kept him in the right place at the right time, Tihinen said in a moderate tone.
Kompany joined the representative team of the big Brussels club Anderlecht at the age of 17. Kompany and Tihini became roommates for game trips.
For three years, they formed an iron-clad top pair in the club that also played in the Champions League. Tihinen recalls that he and Kompany spent many nights together. Anderlecht could also stay in the hotel before their home games.
– Kompany was one of the most ready junior players I’ve seen. He was physically very strong. He immediately had a lot of confidence. I saw pretty quickly that he will still have a really good career if he stays intact, Tihinen describes.
A violent opening of doubts
Along with Tihisen, Kompany became one of the world’s best players in his playing career.
In the peak years of his career, the Belgian captained the English Premier League club Manchester City.
At that time, Manchester City rose to the elite of Europe and England. Kompany won four Premier League titles in the sky blue of Manchester. In the first championship season 2011–2012, Kompany was also chosen as the best player in the Premier League.
The Belgian star started his coaching career directly after the end of his playing career in Anderlecht in the summer of 2020. From there, he moved to Burnley in England after two years.
Kompany first led Burnley to victory in the Championship, but the following season saw relegation from the Premier League. Kompany received a lot of criticism for the season that ended in relegation.
However, the Belgian was unexpectedly hired as Bayern Munich’s head coach in the summer. The place is tight, because Leverkusen, captained by Hradecky, broke Bayern’s 11-year championship streak last year. There must always be success in the giant German club.
There have been enough doubts about the ex-top player. The beginning is still promising. Bayern has scored 16 goals in four Bundesliga matches. In the Champions League opener, the big club from Munich beat Dinamo Zagreb 9–2.
After that match, Kompany also responded strongly to the criticism he received.
– I was born in Brussels. My father was a refugee. He came from the Congo to Belgium. What were my chances of even making it to the Premier League? To play in the Premier League? To win something as a player? To play in the national team and so on? If you look at the probabilities, they would have been 0.001 percent, Kompany began his speech at the press conference.
– Now I’m a coach. The question is, will you stop believing. Do you stop believing in yourself because of what others say? Do you stop believing in yourself because the odds are slim? The attitude is to keep going, and if at the end you fail, then you fail. If you succeed, then you succeed. But you get better every time. It is so important.
Tihinen has been in contact with his good teammate this year as well. He was able to visit Burnley with Kompany in February.
Tihinen, who previously worked as a sports director at Pallloliito, is now an expert in the High-Performance department of the Global Football Development Division of the International Football Association FIFA.
Tihinen visited Burnley’s Academy for his work and got to Kompany’s match meeting.
What caught my eye was the same strength as the young Kompany’s as a teammate. It is the ability to communicate, as one might expect from the speech after the Champions League match.
– Vincent’s ability to communicate is really impressive. Communication skills are top notch. He knows how to use his voice correctly and in different ways. He speaks excellent French, Flemish, German and English. Vincent is really talented for that, says Tihinen.
The icon of Finnish football believes that Kompany’s success at Bayern will not depend on his ability to withstand pressure. He believes that his old teammate will also be successful at Bayern.
– Of course, the rise to the sharpest peak in Europe has been really fast. There is a certain risk when jumping directly from a playing career to the role of a coach. Coaching is not the same thing as playing. It usually takes a few years and you have to train as a coach. In that sense, it has been great that Vincent has assured right away, Tihinen describes.
Interesting settings of the super match
In a slightly caricatured way, the setup for Saturday’s super match is as follows: Bayern Munich has scored a huge number of goals at the same time, while Leverkusen has conceded a lot of goals themselves.
Sure, Hradecky kept a clean sheet against Feyenoord in the Champions League, but in the Bundesliga, Leverkusen has conceded nine goals in four matches.
When Leverkusen beat Wolfsburg 4-3 a week ago as usual, scoring the winning goal in extra time, the team’s star player Granit Xhaka took a strong stand.
– We have conceded too many goals. We can’t concede goals that easily. We know that we need to improve in this area. Hopefully we will be able to do that soon, Xhaka told Sky Germany.
Bayern Munich hosts Leverkusen on Saturday night at 19:30. The Bundesliga table can be found at this link.