Werder's former captain Torsten Frings has been back in Bremen since Monday night. The adventure of the North American professional league MLS in Toronto, Canada is on break until the middle...
Werder's former captain Torsten Frings has been back in Bremen since Monday night. The adventure of the North American professional league MLS in Toronto, Canada is on break until the middle...
Werder's former captain Torsten Frings has been back in Bremen since Monday night. The adventure of the North American professional league MLS in Toronto, Canada is on break until the middle of March. The 34-year-old stopped by his former club Thursday afternoon at Weser Stadium.
Thanks for the exclusive interview. As Werder captain, it was not so easy to get you for a long media chat. Has the everyday life of the MLS loosened you up a little bit? There, reporters talk to the players directly in the changing room.
Torsten Frings: "Maybe. That is certainly a different world. The press guys are not allowed to come into the changing room and fitness room until 15 minutes after the game. That is unimaginable here in Germany. There it's part of everyday work and I had to get used to that at the beginning."
And what can you tell the media members about Canadian football?
Torsten Frings: "That the level is certainly not as high as in the Bundesliga but it is not as bad as it's always made out to be. It is very professional, especially by us. With the travel, the hotel stays, actually everything. Our stadium is totally new and a high-tech training centre is being built for us right now for a lot of money. The club is developing. It has only been in the league the last five years, so it is still at the beginning. "
The distances are very long. Do you leave one day before the game?
Torsten Frings: "We travel to all games where the flight is longer than three hours two days before the game. The body needs to get used to the time differences."
Has there ever been a problem with getting used to things physically?
Torsten Frings: "It gets really crazy for the trips for the North American Champions League, for which we are qualified as one of the best two Canadian teams. There you travel to Nicaragua, Panama and Mexico. In Mexico for example the elevation difference was so extreme that I had never experienced something like that. You could hardly breathe. We lost there 4-0. The Mexicans ran around like rabbits and we played like 80-year-olds."
And how was it in Nicaragua?
Torsten Frings: "It was super! Sold out! 2,000 spectators, but an atmosphere like 20,000 fans. For warm-ups we were accompanied by guys with machine guns in hand who first had to check the pitch to make sure it was safe before you could go on it. That was really odd. You do ask yourself, what am I doing here?"
Encore, please another story!
Torsten Frings: "Okay. In Toronto, a Champions League game was delayed because of a tornado warning. After the first half we trailed 1-0 and it seemed over. The pitch commission met and the referees delayed the game until 10 a.m. the next morning because that fit with the departure plans for our opponents Dallas, who needed to play a couple days later in Los Angeles. It was re-started the next morning at 0-0 and 20 spectators were there. Unfortunately we still lost. That kind of spontaneous re-scheduling would be unimaginable here.
You are beaming while you tell those stories. We can hardly recognise you.
Torsten Frings: "Ah, after a couple months I am able to say I am happy that everything happened how it did. I would not want to have missed this time in Canada."
