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Borussia Dortmund star Marco Reus, currently recovering from an ankle injury sustained a week before the 2014 FIFA World Cup, has confessed to German magazine Kicker his bitterness over missing out on his country’s finest hour. Reus suffered a ligament tear in his left ankle during a 6-1 pre-World Cup friendly win over Armenia, thus ruling him out for the entire duration of Germany’s scintillating run in Brazil.
He was replaced in the squad of 23 by Sampdoria’s Shkodran Mustafi, and had to watch his compatriots lift the World Cup on television. Reus had registered five goals and three assists in the six matches that he played in Germany’s qualifying campaign and had been touted to be instrumental to Germany’s success before the injury dashed his hopes.
Reus had to be replaced just before half-time in the friendly win over Armenia, and he has said he immediately sensed something was wrong. Tears started to flow on way to the hospital. The king of dribbling was then ruled out of the entire showpiece event.
He was invited by the DFB to fly to Brazil with the rest of the team, but he declined saying that he was fully focussed on his rehabilitation programme and that he did not want to hamper recovery. Former club-mate and long-time friend Mario Gotze held up Reus’s shirt during the celebrations after the final match, but Reus says he had already gone to sleep by then.
"For me, a dream has burst”, confessed Reus. “The first few days were extremely hard. Luckily I had my family and friends around me."
"If one day before the departure to Brazil you get the bad news that you cannot fly, it is very painful. If you see how the World Cup ends, it hurts twice that I could not be there.”
Despite being gutted about the World Cup, Reus says his recovery is coming along ahead of schedule. Dortmund are optimistic of what will be a lightning-fast return to action for him in their opening game of the season against Bayer Leverkusen. At 25, one can expect that Reus will get a second chance to shine on football’s greatest stage in Russia, or even Qatar.
