The most absurd football game that a German left-back has ever played was played in Moscow four years ago. Marvin Plattenhardt suddenly found himself on a stage that he previously only knew from public viewing. At the start of the 2018 World Cup, national coach Joachim Löw called him up to replace the sick Jonas Hector in his starting eleven, and it is still not possible to say whether Plattenhardt played a good or bad game in the 0-1 draw against Mexico.
The closest thing to the truth is that Plattenhardt didn’t make any games. He stood around on his left wing with the best of intentions, but he didn’t play there. A scene remains unforgotten when Toni Kroos led the ball through midfield and ignored the very free-standing Plattenhardt with considerable grandeur. Kroos turned and played the ball over to the other side, to someone who wasn’t that free.
It must have been hard for Plattenhardt to get confirmed in front of millions of television viewers how little a famous colleague thought of you, but with a little distance he can be proud of it. He delivered a picture that summarized almost two decades of German football. When first the grandiose Andreas Brehme and later the somewhat flighty Christian Ziege cleared the German left-back, they left a wide swath of wasteland behind.
In old books you come across adventurous names: Heiko Gerber, Ronald Maul, Michael Hartmann, Tobias Rau, they were all allowed to try their hand as a DFB left-back and would have been overlooked even more mercilessly by Toni Kroos had he played back then. Sometimes Philipp Lahm played left-back, but mostly he played right-back. When Germany became world champions in 2014, front stopper Benedikt Höwedes defended on the left back.
Flick could now also play with a three-man defense chain – and David Raum left in front
So David Raum has been warned, he knows: it’s not easy being a German left-back. However, it seems to be a kind of unique selling point of Hoffenheim that he solves difficult tasks in the easiest way. “David showed today that he can play very, very well on the left flank,” praised Hansi Flick after the 1-1 draw against England. With guts and finesse, Raum advanced into the offensive areas and he controlled the defensive areas seriously. With such appearances, he also expands the tactical options of the national coach, who is already flirting with a three-man defense chain of Süle/Rüdiger/Schlotterbeck because he knows that he now has two competitive rail players. Jonas Hofmann (right) and David Raum (left) could widen the defensive bar if necessary and storm forward if not necessary. Flick will now find it difficult to find arguments for competitors like Thilo Kehrer or Benjamin Henrichs; they are better at just defending, although the question is: for how much longer?
That’s what impresses Flick about David Raum: how quickly he learns, how effortlessly he climbs level after level. From promoted Fürth to Hoffenheim, that seemed like a big step that made the space seem as natural in a few weeks as the step from Hoffenheim to the national team. If David Raum continues to adapt so quickly to each new level, the World Cup in winter will suit him just fine.
