Marco Reus: Setbacks, Returns and the World Cup

The Return

On the 18th of February, Marco Reus announced his return from yet another agonising injury, that put him on the sidelines for 252 days, with a well walloped goal against his former club Borussia Monchengladbach.

The 28-year-old’s best friend Mario Gotze played a perfect long through pass to their German teammate Andre Schurrle who made a deft run into the Foals box.

The former Chelsea man believed a touch or two would enable him to have a go at goal but it ended up with the opposition defenders coming back to position, blocking Schurrle’s shooting channels.

Unlike what many other players would do in such a situation, he did not try his luck and just shoot hoping for the ball to deflect and go in the net or hope for a corner or hope for the ball to go back to one of his own.

Instead Schurrle played a pass to the other side of the box. Gotze, who initially played the ball to his teammate had not stopped running and he almost got to the end of that sanguine pass from Schurrle. However, the ex-Bayern player could not make it.

The six Monchengladbach players in the box would have given a sigh of relief thinking that the danger was gone until they saw Marco Reus take a couple of steps backward to make a touch on the ball.

Reus, as if he wanted to release all the agony the injuries have caused, drove a shot that saw the ball go above Yann Sommer’s hands and banged the crossbar before going into the back of the net.

Bob’s your uncle! The man has declared his return to where he belongs in some spunky style.

 

The setback of 2014

I remember myself proudly posting about Reus on social media four years ago. “Watch out for this guy in Brazil” was what I had posted that day.

And I clearly remember coming across the heartbreaking news a couple of days later that Reus is out with a ruptured syndesmotic ligament and won’t be part of the German national team that will travel to Brazil for the World Cup.

Although the Dortmund captain has suffered several injury setbacks, this must have been by far the most painful one. Not physically but mentally.

Being a player who is capable of walking into Joachim Low’s World Cup starting eleven with ease and ending up missing it is definitely much more hurtful than a ligament injury.

And when Gotze held his friend’s shirt up high during the award ceremony of the football’s grandest tournament of them all, surely Reus must have felt much better.

But, his heart was weeping. Gotze holding his shirt is not what he desired. Rather he dreamt of walking with Gotze around the Maracana Stadium in Rio with their arms around each other’s shoulders and their other hands holding the precious trophy.

Yet he was left helpless as he watched his number 21 jersey being raised high by his pal.

“Congratulation to the whole team! Your dream has come true! And thanks to my bro for your gesture! Believe “, Reus posted on social media.

I cannot imagine his state of mind when he typed “your dream”. It must have been excruciating.

That was four years ago. Reus suffered many more injuries. Small ones and big ones alike. Now, he has just strongly returned from a really long one just like he does always and he has shown to the world that injuries cannot keep him down.

We are less than four months away from another World Cup, this time in Russia. While Reus is a kind of player who deals with one match at a time, there is no doubt that he already has set his sight on the tournament.

New stars like Leroy Sane and Julian Brandt may have come through the ranks in the German national team, but a stitched Reus will be preparing to get back the position that he deserves.

I strongly believe that he can and he will, as long as another injury doesn’t play villain. O, God! I pray to thee please let this wounded man be where his heart is this time!

 

Written by Dakir Thanveer

Follow Dakir on Twitter @ZakWriter

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