IN MY WORDS: Florian Jungwirth

The life story of the Quakes defender as told by Flo

By San Jose Earthquakes

November 17^th, 2017

"I was really bad...my father said it would be better if I try another sport."

I was five or six when I started playing football. I didn’t have a lot of choices in the village where I lived - there were just three kinds of sports. One was handball and the other was gymnastics, so the chance was very high that I start to play football.

I was really bad. I remember my first game we lost 24-0 and my father said it would be better if I try another sport. In Germany, every boy starts to play soccer. Maybe that is the reason why I stuck at it.

I was 10 and I played with kids that were two years older in my village’s club. We had a really good team. At that time we played in the best league around Munich and we were facing TSV 1860 Munich. I was two years younger than them, but they didn’t know that and my coach’s stepson was the goalkeeper for Munich and he told them to take a look at me. They called me for a trial and I was there for one or two days and then they asked if I wanted to join the club. At that age you are really proud if you can go to a club like 1860 Munich. It was the first big step for me.

With 16 I got an invitation from the under 16 national team of Germany. That was the first time I thought about and believed in my chance.

I always had a good relationship to my dad. He knows a lot about soccer so every time after the game I have to call him, even now. I know that even if I play well, he tells me all the things he saw that I did wrong.

I remember one moment with my father. I was 16 or 17 and I think as a teenager it is a very tough age. Every week you want to explore yourself and go out to parties, but actually you can’t and you have to show discipline. I tried both ways, and my father just said, “I think now you have to make a decision. It’s totally ok which way you choose, but either you start to play soccer and give everything for that and try to get that little chance, or you get a normal life as a teenager.”

I still believed in my chance at that moment. I think for every boy it is a dream and if you are really knocking on the door, then everyone wants to take the shot. I said to myself that I didn’t want to have regrets in a couple years, so I tried to get the shot.

"That was the best experience of my career."

2014 was a crazy year for me. When the season started, I played for another club called VfL Bochum. Four games were played and the club had some financial problems. They told me two or three weeks before the transfer window closed that I could maybe search for another team. I wasn’t sure what I had to do. On one side, I had a contract with my club for one year. I thought, “ok, let’s go for another team.” Two days before the transfer window closed, my agent called me and told me I had an offer from Austria. I decided with my wife together that we would go to Austria. The next day, the coach of Darmstadt called me in the morning when I went to the training and said, “I know it is very short notice, but can you imagine joining us?” I could imagine because at that moment they were first in the league, but they went up from the third division to the second. At that point, I thought my decision to go to Austria had already been made.

After the training my agent called me and said that the Austrian team also had problems with the money so I called the coach of Darmstadt and said, “Hey, I can imagine joining you. How do you want to do this?”

He said we had to meet quickly because we didn’t have much time. He booked my train ticket, so I went to the train and met him at the Frankfurt Airport. We had a quick conversation and said, “yes, let’s do it.” I called my wife and said, “We don’t go to Austria. We will go to Darmstadt.” It was a crazy year. Everyone expected that Darmstadt go down to the third league, but we started on a big run. We didn’t lose 16 games in a row. We were really good. I think the biggest advantage was that we didn’t have any pressure. All the other teams wanted to get promoted. We believed in the shot. For the last game we were second and had a chance at home and we won. That was the best experience of my career.

It was a huge step going from the 2.Bundesliga to the Bundesliga, especially if you see the difference in the quality. The top teams in the second division have a really good quality compared to MLS, but if you see the first league, it’s so high so you have to work so hard everyday. It was really tough but we did well. We had another sensation and stayed up. We ended in 14th and that was the biggest success in club history because no one expected it again. We had an unbelievable team. We had a great atmosphere in the team and that was the key to success

The most important lesson is for me, especially if you are a professional, the talent you had in your youth team that made you a bit better doesn’t count as a professional. If you work harder than the others, you always get your rewards. That was always a good thing for me.

"We said that California place is somewhere we would love to live, love to make an experience in another country."

My wife’s name is Kathleen. We met when I played for Dresden. We met at a good time and we were just friends. At that moment she moved to Munich. In the summer vacation we met again, this time more than friends. Until the winter break in Germany we had a long distance relationship, and after five months she came to Dresden. Everything was set that she could start work in Dresden, but then in the summer we moved again to Bochum. Typical soccer life.

It is not nice, but you have to get used to it. You meet a lot of friends and interesting people, but when you move the contact gets less and less. That’s tough because usually you would love to stay in one place for a long time with your friends. You don’t see your family for a long time, like here now, and that’s the tough part. I don’t want to complain. I am very blessed.

On Dec. 24, 2014, it was in America, I asked her if she wants to marry me. On Dec. 23, 2015, we married just in the office officially, but our real date was June 4, 2016 and we married in the church.

It was always a big dream for my wife and I to come to here because we had made a lot of vacations here and especially when we went to LA we felt the California lifestyle. We said that California place is somewhere we would love to live, love to make an experience in another country. When the chance was there we were laughing at first because we thought it would be impossible. The chance was so low. It was great. My wife and I really enjoy everything here. It is a big experience for us: the nice people, the weather, the different culture and the language. We improve everyday. It is a very important experience in our lives.

Footnotes

Contributor: Charlotte Muscroft

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FootNotes

Contributor: Charlotte Muscroft