Thomas Delaney – a modern midfielder with a sense of humour

Thomas Delaney has been a Borussia Dortmund player for over five months now. The Dane did not take long to settle into his new club and his new surroundings. "I see myself as a leader," he said on Tuesday evening during an appearance on the 19th edition of the chat show "19:09 – Black & Yellow Talk" at the Lensing Conference Centre in the heart of Dortmund.

The summer arrival from Werder Bremen has featured in 16 of the 20 matches since his transfer, underlining his immense importance to his new employers. He is regarded as a hard-worker in midfield, a fighter with a strong mentality. And a leader too.

But the midfielder, who revealed he would have become a Formula One driver if he had not managed to carve out a career for himself in professional football, is not only a good player – he is a good guy too. Down to earth, relaxed, funny. When asked if things are going so well at BVB because Michael Zorc transferred around €20 million to Bremen during the summer, Delaney answered: "I'm not the kind of guy who would say that things are so good at BVB because Thomas Delaney is here." He then paused for a second, before adding with a broad grin: "But it's obviously true."

It was not the only time Delaney had his audience in stitches. Discussing what it is like to have so many young players around at the club, the 27-year-old said with a wink that it was "like going for a walk with 10 dogs at the same time". That's one of the reasons why he's such a talker on the pitch, even if sometimes nobody's interested. "It probably actually doesn't matter whether anybody's listening, but it's important to me anyway." What else is important to him as a footballer? "I want there to be some good things written about me on Wikipedia once I'm eventually finished with my football career."

The chances of that happening look good. Delaney won the Danish Superliga five times and the domestic cup four times during a spell with FC Copenhagen in his homeland, before leaving for Germany. And what of a Bundesliga title come May? "That's not the goal," he said, adding, "but it's the dream. Hopefully it'll continue this way until the end. What I can promise is that we're very hungry."
Source: ruhrnachrichten.de
Author: Tobias Jöhren