Serge Gnabry cried if he was not permitted to make his dream move to Bayern Munich as a kid.
He was 10 years old and his own dad Jean-Hermann didn’t want the talented kid entering the Bundesliga giants’ academy, a more than two-hour drive from their home in Stuttgart.
“I wished to, it’s an actual story,” Gnabry tells Sport. “Back then, Bayern was the best club. It took me an additional 12 years to return .”
Rather, he was made to wait until he was 12 before linking the youth system of Stuttgart. To the Premier League and Arsenal – he was on his way within a four years – from 2011, in age 16.
“I’m happy with how it has proven,” states Gnabry, who has since returned to Germany and eventually become a celebrity at Bayern.
“The path I’ve taken made me what I am and that I am today.”
It in Munich and Bayern’s ground staff are working to clean the pitch to get a morning training session in the club’s base in the south of the city.
No-one will be using the beer garden inside this weather. Since they trot out, slowing down to see the under-23s enjoying keep-ball on an adjoining pitch, which is beginning to cut in the moist and cold gnabry along with his team-mates are well wrapped up.
From now that he sits down after lunch, Gnabry has only about thawed out, in part as a result of his statement print fleece that was black-and-white. He can pull off it. That is a man who appreciates working with a stylist in his spare time, sees rappers Skepta and A$ AP Rocky one of his influences and also took part in a shoot.
“It comes in wanting to seem good, needing to be comfortable in what I wear when I step out. That’s the thing,” clarifies Gnabry.
“To be truthful, it is always still a little bizarre for me to be in the front of the camera and posing, as when you play with matches you just kind of forget it. Whenever you have a shoot, you know that it’s only you. I am not actually the best in it, but it’s interesting sometimes.”
Gnabry was back at the spotlight Tuesday, scoring twice as Bayern Munich defeat Chelsea 3-0 in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie. In a 7-2 win at Tottenham, he also scored four goals on his trip to London in October.
It’s a city that the forward knows. Before leaving to join Werder Bremen shortly after his 21st birthday at 2016 he spent four years.
“It was quite exciting at first. Quite anxious also, because it was such a large world to enter,” states Gnabry of his 100,000 move to the Gunners that has been consented when he was just 15.
“The cultural impact helped me a great deal and, maturity-wise, I have taken a lot with me from my time in London. As a 16-year-old boyto leave your own parents, leave your surroundings, it allows you to grow a bit faster.”
Gnabry’s father travelled with him to London, accompanying his son on his footballing trip because he did when he deliver rigorous, yet constructive, feedback and would drive him for a kid to training.
But it was a transitional time in the adolescent’s life. He missed the rest of his loved ones, his friends – and even college.
“I had difficult times,” Gnabry states. “English football is somewhat tougher I would say in the childhood than back in Germany, which means you also have to adapt to that.
“I believe everyone who goes through an identical situation experiences the exact same, but in the long run it is an experience and it enables you to grow.”
He was helped to repay by Germany internationals Mesut Ozil and Per Mertesacker. Ozil was someone Gnabry had looked up for a kid and Mertesacker took the child under his wing, so getting a role model along with instructing his own compatriot”to take on responsibility”.
The pacy winger impressed boss Arsene Wenger and has been given his senior introduction with just turned 17. Arsenal’s attacking style correct him a bright, offensive player – but 18 appearances during his first two seasons as a professional had been interrupted by a knee injury.
Battling for gym and first-team minutes, Gnabry was shipped out to West Brom, where he created only one Premier League look. Manager Tony Pulis told the press he was not ready for football.
Wenger did not want to allow the youngster leave Arsenal. The Frenchman thought that he could rebuild his confidence, but that Gnabry it was home was convinced by devastating spell with the Baggies.
He combined Werder Bremen – despite being linked with a move to Bayern – having sought advice from team-mates and past Bremen players Mertesacker and Ozil.
“Definitely it had been following the West Brom spell,” states Gnabry of his decision to go back to Germany. “I understood that I had to play at a high level, and that I believe Germany from the few years because I transferred had improved a lot.
“So I thought:’OK, take a chance on this, let me return ‘ I didn’t find a good deal of game time the season. This was the key factor.”
Does Gnabry believe he has a point when he heads at Stamford Bridge to prove to English fans?
“I don’t think it’s about showing other men and women what is occurring. So long as I play, people will understand,” he says with certainty, knowing his final visit to the British funding silenced any doubters. Reacting to Bayern’s mauling of Spurs in October, and Gnabry’s starring role in it, his old manager Pulis said:”You could knock me over with a feather. If folks show what they can really do, actually knuckle down and eventually become good, as he is completed, it is absolutely fantastic.”
Alexander Nouri was that the guy in charge of Werder Bremen when Gnabry eager, impatient and arrived to enhance. Interim manager at Hertha Berlin, Nouri remembers him carrying balls to practise shooting along with his weaker left foot after training sessions.
11 league goals were scored by gnabry . It made his move into Bayern, who also paid a reported 8m euros (#6.6m). He was sent on Hoffenheim, where he scored another 10 days. It’s at Bayern where Nouri believes Gnabry has come to be a”full player”.
The pair had a lengthy conversation at the Germany team hotel while Gnabry had been on duty. He told his supervisor what he had learned from today stars Franck Ribery and Arjen Robben: the value of practising outside your comfort zone and developing a winning mentality. Nouri also believes he’s been working on the defensive side of the game.
“We had a very long chat. It was really remarkable what he explained,” Nouri states. “I figured out when I had been talking to him which he had been picking an extraordinary way for his profession.
“If you opt for this manner you want to commit to a lifestyle of how much effort you put in. You want to live and work with this manner, and my feeling was he’s completely dedicated to this.”
That dedication is continuing to pay off. Gnabry provided two assists and scored his 15th objective of the season for Bayern at a triumph over Paderborn on Friday. And he remains hungry for more.
“It becomes a habit that you want to do much more, wish to make more,” he says.
“It’s not being satisfied with how things are moving and going into every game trying my very best to score, that will help the team . I work in training for this and hopefully at the match items will come”
When things go to plan, this summer would offer a different challenge to Gnabry – his first taste of a major tournament. Germany are drawn in a tough group for the European Championship along with holders Portugal, world champions France plus a team to qualify through the play-offs – Georgia, Belarus, North Kosovo or Macedonia.
On the back of finishing joint-top scorer in the 2016 Olympics, when Germany won the silver medal, and with older buddies Ozil and Mertesacker’s glowing recommendation to head trainer Joachim Low, Gnabry had been handed his senior international debut in November 2016 and instantly made his mark with a hat-trick against San Marino.
His kind for the national side has continued since, attaining 10 targets at a record 11 games for scoring and Germany 13 times in total.
Low even travelled to London many times to see the teen and had desired Gnabry within his 2014 World Cup-winning squad. But a knee problem ruled out him along with a series of injuries saw him miss out four decades later.
“I’m definitely looking forward and hoping I can make it this time,” states Gnabry, keen to help his nation bounce back from a poor showing at the World Cup in Russia two decades back.
That failure sparked a cull of seasoned players using Low telling Mats Hummels, Jerome Boateng and Thomas Muller, from the squad they would no longer be chosen. The head trainer has rather rebuilt his side round the likes of Gnabry, Bayern team-mate Joshua Kimmich, 25, along with 23-year-old RB Leipzig ahead Timo Werner.
“We have an exciting group, a terrific soul, plenty of young players, and we could aim for a lot,” provides Gnabry, who will turn 25 two weeks following the Euro 2020 closing at Wembley on 12 July.
Gnabry is conscious of his situation with the Bundesliga champions perhaps due to the path he chose to Bayern, the team where it started 14 years ago. He stays humble and understands what it means to signify one of Europe’s most important clubs.
“For certain, you have moments in which you sit and reflect on how things move,” he says. “It is the same with everything. You get get used to your interviews, however come here knowing what or you always need to put on the jersey a golf club it is.
“This is a child’s dream to play for a club like this. Now you are there, therefore it’s a moment where you are very much proud of yourself and enjoy it.”
Thankful for the advice he was given from Robben, Ribery, Mertesacker and Ozil, the 24-year-old is ready to assist his younger team-mates. And away from the pitch, he’s pleased to be seen as a role model, too.
“You have a voice that individuals will listen to because you are famous and a lot of young kids especially appear to you,” he states. “You may set an example and be heard more than other individuals are, even if they had the same intentions.
“I say never to lose the joy of playing soccer because this is exactly what conveys someone – not only in football but also in different sports, other jobs which individuals are passionate about.
“Everybody has talent, however, the sooner you take it badly, the better your results will probably come. I have experienced that today.”