Sebastian Rode looked on and responded with a tentative Wave to the occasional “dopey, dopey!”-Call. What a reception at the home of his fresh start to an old workplace on Thursday! As the 28-year-old midfielder, is the only Winter-recommitment of Frankfurt, at the world Cup Arena, the stairs to the training ground, he looked up in a colourful mixed crowd of Eintracht-Fans. About 1500 had gathered despite the cold and dreary weather to greet the team on the first working day after the Christmas vacation are numerous and sincere. Some of them formed a guard of honour at the Front line as a Rode and his colleagues passed by in a row. The native of Hesse – he comes from Alsbach-Hähnlein to the mountain road – clapped him-stretched hands or nodded in a friendly with the head. “For me, the harmony is a matter of the heart, they had priority,” had brought the Dortmund on loan in front of it in a press round his attachment to his homeland.

in August, Rode knew that he would be sporty and have the current Bundesliga table leader under new coach Lucien Favre. You have communicated to him, reported the former U-21 national player, “little”, that it “will itself in the English weeks” for him to come to operations. So it was: Rode, had to settle for in the first half of the season with two inserts in the second club team in the fourth division Regionalliga West. Why is it not more were to gather at least a bit of match practice? To play “somewhere on a Village farm, which must not necessarily be,” said Rode. That was not a hint of arrogance. He has remained down-to-earth and modest, this impression he conveyed in his presentation.

complaint-free and full of Motivation

In the late summer lightning in exchange for Eintracht failed, probably for economic reasons. Now it is high time that we Rode, in Frankfurt, back in his better times of the year. The coming months will be for him “a very important Phase,” he said. “I want to show everyone that I can find to old Form that I belong to the place, and that it is right of of the harmony was to get me.” Behind him a “hard time”, which had been crappy the past two years in Dortmund””. Rode, the best fighter on the court, fought off the pitch with injuries and physical impairments. Above all, his pubic bone inflammation has proved to be stubborn. Him also began to doubt whether his fitness for the world of professional football at the highest level, out of which he makes no secret of the fact. “I already had the one or other thought, if the pain is not gone, although I had always tried something New.” An Operation in the spring of 2017, the “be excellent”, then brought the turn. Rode has since been symptom-free, “I can jump anywhere in and out of tackles. To me it goes well. I have full confidence in my body.“ In the Conviction Rode said now: “I never lost Faith in me.”