Ismail Gündogan took his duffel bag and went to Germany to work, in his case in the Nordstern coal mine. Like so many other Turks throughout the second half of the 20th century, he left his native country to give his family a better future. And he succeeded in spades. His children, one of them also a miner, grew up in German lands and then his grandchildren, including a soccer star: Ilkay Gündogan. Based on "courage", "discipline" and "ambition", values he learned from his ancestors, the midfielder overcame very serious injuries in his early years as a player, especially one in the back, and this past season, at 32 years, has reached the zenith of his career by lifting the Champions League as captain of Manchester City. The Barça dressing room will receive a footballer with undeniable virtues for the Barça style of play, but above all it will welcome a person of solidarity and with very clear ideas. "I realized, especially when I was injured, how much more important other things are than having the best car, the latest clothes or the most expensive watch," defends the new Barcelona signing.
Gundogan's first steps in football were at Hessler, a team linked to Schalke 04, and later he defended the Bochum shirt. He finally made his First Division debut with Nuremberg at the age of 18. "Perhaps it was the happiest moment of my life," he later declared about his debut in the Bundesliga. He would leave behind his childhood years playing soccer in the street until nightfall and loading barrels of beer into his father's truck with his older brother, Ilker, his great support, who opted to study. East Asian economics and politics.
Gundogan signed for Borussia Dortmund in 2011 and soon after, more than a decade ago, he broke into the football elite with force. Jürgen Klopp turned the black-and-yellow team, at that time full of youngsters, into a sensation in Europe thanks to an attractive way of playing that also paid off: they won the Bundesliga in 2012. The German midfielder was one of the architects of that league success along with other now illustrious names such as Robert Lewandowski, with whom he will once again share a dressing room at Barça. The Gelsenkirchen-born was even able to give the Ruhr Basin team their second Champions League title the following season, thanks to a penalty goal, but Bayern finally woke him up from a dream that turned into a nightmare just a few weeks later.
Gundogan was living a sweet moment, on the agenda of the great teams of the continent, until a back injury completely blurred his football horizon. The German still had time to get a little revenge, when Dortmund won the German Super Cup against the Bavarians, again with a goal from the midfielder, but on the first day of the Bundesliga his ordeal began with his back. He was substituted against Augsburg and he did not dress short again until the following season, on October 18 for the eighth matchday of the domestic championship against Cologne.
"I was out for 14 months, but the worst part was that nobody really knew what kind of injury it was. I saw a surgeon and he wanted to put a big screw in my back that wouldn't allow me to play football at this level. So I was afraid of not play again and I am very grateful to have found the right surgeon", the German explained in an interview in The Guardian about an injury that prevented him from playing with Germany in the 2014 World Cup, where the Mannschaft were proclaimed champions.
Gundogan returned to his best version in the 2014-15 season, technically impeccable, with great vision of the game and scoring ability. He saw the light. He took the reins of Dortmund again, being the undisputed starter, until once again the physicist cut short his plans. His final in the German team came abruptly, in the dry dock during the final stretch of the 2015-16 season, from April 17, due to a dislocated kneecap. The injury, which kept him out for more than four months, prevented him from playing in the 2016 Euro Cup but he did not prevent him from signing that summer for Manchester City, who paid 27 million. It was Pep Guardiola's first request after his arrival on the skyblue bench.
The football idyll between the coach and the player was immediate. "When I played for Dortmund against Pep's teams it was very difficult. Those teams always had an incredible plan from Pep. You feel the fight on the pitch against his teams. So it was always clear that if I had the opportunity to work with him, I had to take it. I always learn from him", explained Gündogan about the man from Santpedor.
From the fifth day of the Premier of the 2016-17 season, once he had recovered from his knee, the Teuton was a fixture for Guardiola, but for the third and last time in his career he suffered a serious injury, again to his right knee. , stopped him dead from December. A torn ligament prevented him from dressing short until the following season, just coinciding with the first successes of Guardiola's City.
Gundogan has lived alone for most of his time in Manchester, without the support of his family, a part of it in Germany and another in Turkey. "Of course I feel lonely. It's normal. But I try to stay positive and talk to all the people around me through video calls and WhatsApp," said the German in 2021, who took loneliness especially badly during the pandemic: "It showed me that the most important thing is family and friends, people very close to my heart".
Despite not having the warmth of his own, and once his physical problems have been forgotten, with hardly any major injuries since 2017, the midfielder has offered a great level with the cityzen team in recent seasons, almost always in the starting eleven. He has played 304 games with the English team in which he has scored 60 goals and given 40 assists.
Beyond the field, Gündogan's life changed from 2022, the year in which he married the Italian model and presenter with Tunisian roots Sara Arfaoui. The couple held a secret wedding in Copenhagen, they say in Turkey for the UEFA title won on Danish soil in 2000 by Galatasaray, of which the midfielder is supposedly a fan. They then held a second, more traditional celebration, with more than 2,000 guests, in Dursunbey, a small Turkish town where Gündogan's family is from. The midfielder, who feels as German as he is Turkish, has turned to this Ottoman town, where he has invested a lot of money in infrastructure. It is not the only solidarity action of the player, who also donated 300,000 euros for the construction of the stadium of his childhood club, Hessler, and has been involved with the UNHCR in helping refugees.
The German has performed at a high level this last season, in which he has scored 11 goals and has distributed 7 assists in 51 games, and his role at City has been especially relevant in a very scoring last stretch, perhaps due to his birth last March of their first son, Qais. Fatherhood and his triplet with City have been the icing on the cake for his seven years in Manchester. His image lifting the Champions League in Istanbul, the first of his career after two lost finals, closed the stage in England for a Gündogan who now lands in Barcelona with a backpack full of successes and the values that his grandfather Ismail transmitted to the family when the soccer was not even a distant dream.
