Behind Niklas Dorsch (25) is a darned half year. With the kicker he spoke openly about his injuries, the doubts and the next comeback.
In the middle of the conversation, Niklas Dorsch pulls his mobile phone out of his pocket. “Wait,” he says. “I can show you.” He briefly scrolls through his photos and gets stuck on two X-rays. One shows his foot before the operation, the other the foot after the operation. It’s hard to tell the difference because there’s now a screw in the left foot, far left below the little toe.
“You just notice that there is a screw in the bone”
It all feels weird, says Dorsch. Completely different than before. “There’s a scar now, the skin around it is numb. You just notice that there’s a screw in the bone.” Unfortunately, there was no other way out.
In the summer, the 25-year-old, who is now 25, wanted to attack again after breaking his collarbone and having an operation. Dorsch stepped back, tried to ignore the pain as best he could, he helped himself with painkillers for the season dress rehearsal against Stade Rennes. “The Bundesliga started a week later.” Without him.
We are dependent on our bodies, I hope I still have ten to twelve years ahead of me.
Against Rennes, the thigh had healed again, only the foot was louder now. And so it happened. “I landed in a strange way and buckled as a result.” Supported by the field, the diagnosis was not long in coming: metatarsal fracture, month-long break. “We are dependent on our bodies, I hope I still have ten to twelve years ahead of me,” says Dorsch in retrospect. “Of course you ask yourself how this is going to continue in the next few years.” First the collarbone, now the foot.
“That was another house number”
Initially, rehabilitation continued without an operation. Dorsch reported back relatively quickly and made his comeback with the second team against Pipinsried in mid-October. It lasted a quarter of an hour. “These are moments you won’t soon forget,” he says. “I was sitting in the changing room at the Rosenau Stadium and I quickly realized that things were going in the same direction again.” He should be right. The metatarsus had broken out again, this time an operation was unavoidable. “It’s an intervention in my body in a place that I’m dependent on. That was another house number than the shoulder.”
Dorsch had to endure “brutal” days, time passed more slowly. “And you’re allowed to wear a shoe like that for six weeks, which is anything but comfortable.” And now there was a screw in the foot.
Meanwhile, after a difficult start, his teammates under Enrico Maassen suddenly clinched three victories in a row before things went in the other direction again. Dorsch followed every home game live in the arena, which was not a matter of course for him. “I’ve often thought about going to the stadium or not.” A lot came together: longing, frustration, tension. “Any player who tells me he’s sitting there relaxed isn’t telling the truth.”
“You can’t do anything, you can’t intervene”
When colleagues cheered, Dorsch cheered with them. If they suffered, he suffered with them. But other thoughts mixed in: “If you’re working towards being back after game day six or seven and then that becomes game day 15 or 16, you sit there every week and think: ‘It’s going to be a long time before I’m back am on the pitch.’ You can’t do anything, you can’t intervene.”
Maassen regularly asked his playmaker, who had been chosen as the key figure. The young coach repeatedly mentioned in front of the camera how much Dorsch’s loss hurt him. “That also gave me a bit of strength at the time,” admits the player. “In the meantime I’ve always had the feeling that I don’t really belong to the team because of course I wasn’t in the dressing room every day. At some point you sit at home and ask yourself: ‘What am I training for? I have no influence at all. ‘ “I train to play at the weekend to be successful. The coach got me out of it, he made me feel important even though I wasn’t on the pitch.”
We talked and exchanged ideas after every game, which was very important for me.
Maassen asked Dorsch for his opinion, Dorsch gave it to him and pointed out things that he might have been able to perceive better from the outside. “Some of the guys I’ve known longer than the coaching staff, so I was able to help. We talked and exchanged ideas after every game, which was very important to me.”
“It’s just a matter of flipping the switch in your head”
Three months have now passed since the latest setback, in the winter training camp in Scheffau Dorsch was involved as much as he could, this time he should be introduced as cautiously as possible. “From a medical point of view, I got the green light,” he explains. “They say nothing is going to happen anymore. It’s just a matter of flipping the switch in your head. The foot is stable, I feel good, I feel like kicking.”
But that’s where the danger lurks: “I might want too much. Finding the right mix is brutally difficult. Reason plays a big role. The most important thing now is your head. That you regain confidence in yourself.” Dorsch openly admits that his head isn’t completely clear just yet. “I don’t need to tell stories, that’s difficult.”
“I wouldn’t speak of fear, but the respect is already there”
It would have been easier, he grins, “if someone had stepped on my foot twice, because then I would have known where it came from. But if that happens twice with simple changes of direction … My game thrives on these movements. I wouldn’t be afraid speak, but the respect is already there.”
Comeback in Dortmund almost impossible
And another setback too. In the final test match against Wolfsburg (1-0), Dorsch should have collected minutes for the first time since the Pipinsried disaster, this time a cold slowed him down. A comeback in Dortmund is therefore almost impossible.
In any case, he has to take a back seat, even if Carlos Gruezo, a regular player from the first half of the season, has changed. “I always aim to play, but when the first three games are complete rubbish, you have to be honest: ‘Dorschi, you’re not ready yet.’ If the performance is right and I get back to the level I was at, then I want to play.”
He puts the phone back in his pocket, looks down at his foot, which is in a pair of flip-flops, and takes a deep breath. “First of all, I have to stay healthy now.” Easier said than done.
