After a solid, if unspectacular, first season at Arsenal Lukas Podolski ‘rested’ over the summer by hosting a celebrity-packed charity match in Cologne, scoring a brace for Germany in the USA, swimming with dolphins, rally driving, hanging out with F1 stars, chilling with Rihanna and then finally, having a massive barbecue at home. The guy seemingly can’t sit still, so it’s no wonder his teammates think him ‘crazy.’
Perhaps we here in England underestimate quite how revered Poldi is back home. A near ever-present for the national team since the 2006 World Cup he’s a star of the highest calibre, which is probably why the German version of GQ are featuring him this month,
Speaking to the men’s magazine he reflected on his first twelve months in London declaring himself happy both on and off the pitch.
“When it comes to my personal life and career as a footballer, I lead a very different life here,” Poldi remarked.
“Here it’s all about football. When you go training there are no crowds, only employees of the club. It’s very professional and easy going.
Having come from a club with whom his ties were so strong that he had their crest tattoed on his arm and a league whose choreographed fans are not only colourful and loud on the terraces but powerful in the boardroom, you might imagine Podolski underwhelmed by the fans in England and at the Emirates. However, it turns out he’s overwhelmed by the passion.
“No one is ever booed. Never! No matter what kind of crap they play, the fans always support the team until the end.
“The love of the game is what matters and it’s very pronounced. The crowd suffers and celebrate with their team intensely. Even the simple things are cheered.”
On the pitch, Podolski is similarly captivated with the intensity, joking that he’s even impressed with the work rate of the officials.
“It’s dynamic, intense, powerful, straight from the first whistle. Sometimes the referee is running so much I wonder whether he’s even on the pitch.”
While Lukas makes no bones about the fact he’s happy in London he does admit that he still has his eye on a third stint with hometown club Cologne, just not until he’s succeeded at Arsenal.
“It’s not for nothing I have the Cologne badge tattoed on my arm. This is my city, I’ll come back sometime. But not now. Not yet.”
Not to be a douche, but there were plenty of boos raining down this season. Granted the boos usually happened after the game so technically the fans supported “until the end”
LOL
Binda = Maxipad in Swedish…
The way I saw it when there was booing last season it was usually aimed at the officials, not really at the team… Especially when Mike Dean came to visit and share some of his unique perspective with us.
Prinz Poldi, living life to the fullest. I wish I were his bro
We are all Poldi’s bro.
We are all passengers in his taxi.
So do these guys:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3Juhm54IkI
they wish they were more than just his bro ..
True dat
I do love Poldi. He reminds me a little of my favourite player, Ljungberg. With any luck, next season he’ll replicate Freddie’s success.
Good player and just oozes as being a good bloke. Can’t not like him.
He’s been a refreshing change compared to so many modern day footballers, catches the bus to get to training, gets around in a taxi to explore London. He just appears to live life like any other guy on the street.
Its probably qualities like these which made Wenger sign him up. If he gets into some decent form and scores 15-20 goals with 7-10 assists I’d think its job done.
It sure will be interesting to see what Podolski can do next season!
Well, if i am not wrong he did get 14 goals and 11 assists . Thats a pretty impressive stat considering he largely played on the left wing
What happened to signing Higuain?
So you’re going to be starring in’T.J. and the Transfer Window’ soon then…
transfers; the forbidden fruit that must be tasted
Transfer rumour-mongers; feed us the forbidden fruit, for which they should be tazered.
Good guy. He will surely teach Suarez how to loosen up and enjoy life. *sorry Blogs. I know you don’t wan’t him at Arsenal but I do.*
Wenger only buys nice guys (NB52 might be the exception to the rule…) and Rat Face is no nice guy. He’s only bidding for him to force Real to show their hand, thus paving the way for Higuains arrival. Well, i hope they’re being that clever anyway.
Yup. I saw “Real to hijack Arsenal’s bid for Suarez” in the press[1] this morning, so it may be working.
[1] Or it may be complete bollocks.
I’m gonna try and keep the faith on this one. I’m even going to pre-order a “Higgy 20” away shirt. That’s how confident/stupid* I am
*Delete as appropriate
If that’s what we are doing, it doesn’t seem very smart. The max Real seem to want for our man is 30m euros. We are reported to be bidding the same amount for suarez, but in pounds (!), for a much inferior player. So there’s no way we’ll go until the end with this suarez thing, and our intentions become quite transparent. Well, I hope Real are not as clever as me anyway 🙂
Well if they weren’t they’ve probably got spies reading this right now. So if Higgy doesn’t don an arsenal shirt this season I’m holding you personally responsible for giving the game away.
Well, Higuain is certainly the better goalscorer but suarez can play all across the frontline and is probably the more complete player
That being said, I dont think Suarez is worth 40m.
Although I agree Suarez is inferior to Higuain, you should factor in the fact that buying Suarez would severely weaken one of our Premier League rivals, so you can understand the higher price tag.
Liverpool are not one of our rivals. They’re garbage. They can only come 7th with Suarez in their team!
But surely the main reason for buying a player can’t be to weaken your rivals? I mean what kind of a dirty filthy underhanded club would do such a thing?
For me, if we buy Rat Face it’ll be like buying the Dutch Skunk and Na$ri back after their henous money grabbing backstabbery. Non non non monsieur Wenger, je n’approuve pas!
Yep @ his touchdown press con Wenger refused to rule out a move for suarez. if arsene wants him then who is Arseblog?
Errr, an Irish fella called Andrew?
Suarez should never grace an Arsenal shirt. It is an honour for an honorable gentleman and he is not one. As much as he is a fantastic footballer he is a cowardly douchebag who always plays the victim on and off the pitch. He won’t play every game during a season because he will eventually be suspended for doing something stupid. It has happened the last three years in a row. Biting last season, racism the season before, biting the season before that. It seems he is not capable of learning from his mistakes and these are the sort of… Read more »
God I know he’s a fantastic player and everything but the thought of him in an Arsenal shirt makes me gag.
poldi, Have a word with bendtner please and tell him to fuck off
Podolskis a great guy and a good footballer to. but I still think him and giroud put together dont add up to what the Dutch whore gave us. We seriously need to strengthen up front. 1 top class forward plus what we already have and we’ll be good upfront.
put together no. Podolski on his own, yes.
what’s wrong with my face? Why do I have this face?? haha
Top geezer. Unfortunately, Wenger doesn’t know how to use him in the team.
agreed. hope he’ll figure it out.
just because you play fifa with poldi as the striker does not mean that is the ‘best’ position for him to play. he had a decent return of goals/assists playing from the let. Plus, who else in our squad can cross at all, let alone curl them in with their left foot?
+f
One could have used exactly the same argument, if we had Van Persie instead of Podolski.
i cannot come up with a response to your point (fair point, btw) that does not include a compliment to the dutch traitor, and therefore i shall bid you adieu
He’s a great guy.
Actually you misinterpreted the section about the work rate of the referees. He actually said “Sie lassen so viel laufen” which means they let some duels go without the play for every little tangle for the ball and blow the whistle less than in comparable leagues.
Man the German language is compact.
That was funny, I laughed
“The German Language is compact”
I think you mean “concerntrated”
Arf Arf
*Refuses to get coat; it’s too hot outside, if anything needs a shower”
*gets beaten up*
If he meant concerntrated he’d have said concerntrated, or maybe he’d have said worriedified.
*deserves a beating more than you do*
*hides behind the coats*
While the team were warming up at Swansea away (FA cup). The forward were doing some shooting practise. While a lot of shots were high and wide. Poldi was Mr 100%. Really clean and powerful hits too. Really like this guy
Poldi the man.
Podolski’s a top class striker.
All we need is a dominating midfield to boss games and pick out our intelligent strikers. We’ll be devastating with Poldi’s powerful left foot, Walcott’s precision right, and Giroud’s height.
Gervinho’s pace?
*gets coat*
think you mean gervinho’s technique/final pass????!!!!
I am also hoping for even more from Poldi this coming campaign. I like him a lot. Hampered by injury last season apparently and he still contributed a reasonable amount. I agree we need to use him a bit differently, maybe we need to buy a left winger or promote Gibbs there, play Poldi more centrally perhaps ? I don’t know the answer but I am sure with a decent out and out goal scorer coming in, Poldi and Giroud between them, in alternater halves or games or whatever, can provide a great foil and score their fair share ,… Read more »
While, on a personal level, Suarez may not be everybody’s cup of tea surely nobody can suggest that he’s not a genuine world class player. Higuan is also a top class player but the difference is that Suarez has proven himself in the Premiership whereas Higuan will have to adjust to the different pace of the game here. I find it amazing that people feel we can turn our nose up at a genuine world class player when we’ve so much ground to make up on the 3 other top 4 clubs. Okay, he has his unsavoury side but he’s… Read more »
I would agree apart from the fact that he appears to have eaten his way out of contracts at both Liverpool and Ajax. Our transfer budget is big but not bottomless so paying big for a player who might get bitey should he want to leave is a real gamble. Anyhow the adjustment period for top players is overstated IMO; look at Aguero’s immediate impact for Citeh.
“eaten his way out of contracts”
love it
No, sorry. For me I’d still hate him if he played for us. He’s one of the few players I have a proper negative view towards. He may well be a great player but its overshadowed by everything else that comes with being him. I think i’d actually prefer Wenger went after Crouchinho.
ok, so maybe that last sentace is a bit overboard…
Suarez to Arsenal will never happen. It just amazes me how naive some supporters at this club are. Here’s what’s probably going on: 1. Arsenal have found out that Higuain wanted to leave Real Madrid and have made an unofficial inquiry as to his availability and price. 2. Unofficially they have been told that he has been valued at about 25 million quid by the club. 3. Arsenal contacted his agent (dad) and informally agreed personal terms. They then made an unofficial bid of about 20 million quid. 4. Madrid have unofficially rejected the bid, but they do want to… Read more »
Wait wasn’t he carrying some sort of injury even while playing last season? I thought that was why he got subbed so much and should be having a surgery or so this summer…
Anyways I hope he’s fully fit and raring to go when the season starts
out of curiosity, did/do you live in the middle east? houseboys are very common over there (basically a maid, immigrant labourer from Asian subcontinent).
Poidi deserved man of the match games at times last season,bt there also times he lack sharpness which i think was due to injuries…hope he ll come back more experience and stronger…as for suarez he is a world apart compared to higuan when it comes to premier league but i doubt the other side of him will survive the English media.
Best goal of last seaon: that free kick Poldi belted in from outside the box
More like that please.
That goal was great. I preferred his super volley though.
Gotta love Poldi as a guy. He really lives life fully. He doesn’t swan about like a diva. He just has a lot of fun with his spare time. If I were in his shoes I would do exactly the same as him.
If Wenger makes one change to our style this season he must make sure that Poldi takes our free kicks. Or Arteta, or Cazorla, or Giroud, just not Walcott. Walcott scores lovely goals when he hasn’t got much time to think about what he is going to do with the ball, but give him time to think about it and he always misses. Walcott must be forcibly prevented from taking free kicks.
If I were in his shoes, I’d have 0 goals and 0 assists.
Don’t be so hard on yourself. Maybe you’d score an own goal?
I’d give them back
He wouldn’t have any either. It’s hard to score or provide assists in your socks.
Higuain was at colney this morning undergoing his medical, I saw him dammit.
note to self : you did not see higuain, you were probably dreaming.
You weren’t at Colney. You were on Twitter.
The only thing that makes things bearable is that right now, none of the big 4 have made any top, top, top signings. All the activity is happening in Germany, France & Spain.
As soon as they do though, the most almighty pressure will present itself on AW & the board’s head from the media (even moreso than usual) and the glorious Gooner army.
Our forrin billionaires are missing out on the big names because the forriners forrin billionaires are buying them all up. Our forrin billionaires aren’t as billionairey as the others.
I hope Wenger ships him back to koln. So second class..not a typical wenger signing too, and NOT similar to ljungberg at all. Cant be part of wengerball and cant play upfront. Another cheap punt from im-off-to-psg-soon nutter.
Was this attempted humour or successful cuntery?
I hope Wenger ships him back to koln. So second class..not a typical wenger signing too, and NOT similar to ljungberg at all. Cant be part of wengerball and cant play upfront. Another cheap punt from im-off-to-psg-soon nutter.
random hopeful optimistic thought: maybe arsenal and real are in cahoots to drive the suarez price down? real says they’ll sell us higuan for XX mil, IF we help them get suarez on the cheap.
FYI I have no inside sources, and, like the modern media, I base the above comments on absolutely nothing.
If you base your comments on absolutely nothing, then you sir (or madam) have exactly what it takes to become a Journalist. Have you thought about a career change of late?
oh to be a journalistalist. carefree life, late morning coffees and letting my imagination run wild. actually it sounds pretty tempting, I think I could make up transfer rumors like the rest.
BREAKING NEWS – arsenal to sign jamie lannister!
although with our record of dodgy signings, we’d probably end up with theon grejoy (he’s the gervinho of the game of thrones universe)
more NB52 than gerv I would say
If they are forcing the price down it is so that Barcelona will buy him. What a cunning plan. Well done Arsenal and Real Madrid. We get Higuain and damn the cost, Real Madrid don’t get anyone but retain Ronaldo, and Barcelona implode after three months.
Fucking love Podolski. My kind of crazy bastard.
Higuain was at colney this morning undergoing his medical, I saw him dammit.
note to self : you did not see higuain, you were probably dreaming, wenger is a money-pinching gaffer.
z
I know what that z is. You fell asleep after posting this the first time and you woke up and posted it again, didn’t you?
Wasn’t funny the first time either.
I think we should create a line of dos equis memes starring poldi as the most interesting man in the world. I’m not always on holiday, but when i am, i prefer to drive rally cars, hold charity matches, and hang out with rihanna.
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