Chelsea's frustrated talent is playing a lead role on the stage where another Englishman, Kevin Keegan, remains a legend
It is not a bad time to be the only Englishman in the Bundesliga, even if the right-hand drive Range Rover Michael Mancienne parks outside Hamburg's stadium suggests he is not quite ready to buy into everything German. With Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund meeting in the Champions League final, and Pep Guardiola on his way over, Germany is the place to be in Mancienne's eyes. "This league is only getting bigger and better," he says.
Two years have passed since Mancienne left Chelsea, the club where he had been since the age of eight, to follow in the footsteps of a former England international who will always be close to Hamburg hearts. "Mighty Mouse!" says Mancienne, referring to the moniker Kevin Keegan was given at Hamburg. "He was a legend here and they still love him to this day."
Keegan spent three years with Hamburg back in the late 1970s, when the club won a league title and reached a European Cup final, which feels a long way from their current ambitions. Hamburg flirted with relegation in Mancienne's first season and, although they improved this term, a seventh-place finish means they missed out on qualifying for Europe.
It has, Mancienne admits, been "a rollercoaster couple of years" for the club, with Hamburg's erratic form summed up by their results this season against the Champions League finalists. Having beaten Dortmund home and away, Hamburg suffered their second defeat of the season by Bayern Munich, in March, in the most humiliating circumstances possible. They were hammered 9-2, which was their heaviest defeat for 49 years.
"That game was unbelievable," Mancienne says. "I was on the bench because it was my first game back [after injury]. I have never seen anything like it before. They looked so dangerous every single time they attacked. And that wasn't their strongest team, they rested a few, that just shows the depth in their squad. They could probably put another team in the Bundesliga and finish second. Munich's form this season has been phenomenal."
Hamburg's defeat in Munich was so embarrassing that the club felt obliged to do something unprecedented to apologise to those supporters who had travelled to the Allianz Arena. "I think it took some people about nine hours to get there, we wanted to say sorry for such a bad game, so the team threw a barbecue and gave free food and free beers," Mancienne says.
"It took place behind the stand after training and every player had to go. The fans were able to come up and speak to us and pretty much tell us how they felt – you would never get that in England, by the way! Obviously inside the players were thinking: 'Oh shit!' But it was actually a good afternoon."
Although Mancienne is full of admiration for Bayern, and in particular their attacking prowess – he says Mario Mandzukic has been his toughest opponent in the Bundesliga – the central defender senses Dortmund may triumph at Wembley. "Dortmund play really good football but their main quality is that they work so hard for each other. When they lose the ball, watch their players – they all try to win it back. They're so good at countering as well. It's two great teams, but on the right night I think Dortmund could beat Bayern."
Talking in one of the hospitality suites at Hamburg's Imtech Arena, Mancienne gives the impression that he could not be happier in Germany. Mancienne has relished the chance to play regularly – he had started every game but one this season until he damaged his ankle ligaments in January – and believes he has matured as a footballer in a league "where everyone tries to play".
There has, in other words, never been a moment when Mancienne has questioned if he made the right decision to accept an offer from Frank Arnesen, who left his position as sporting director at Chelsea to take up the same role at Hamburg. "As soon as Frank told me, I thought: 'One hundred per cent you need to do this.' It was going to be a new challenge, a different phase of my life and an exciting opportunity. I knew the time was right, a chance to create my own name and not be the youngster trying to come off the bench at Chelsea," says Mancienne, who made six appearances for Chelsea and had loan spells at Queens Park Rangers and Wolves.
"I wanted to be playing regularly and obviously I knew that would be a pretty much impossible task at Chelsea. They've got so much money, and as a homegrown player you almost get cast aside a little bit. You feel like you don't get an opportunity unless you go out on loan. And even then you come back, think you've done well and you get sent back out on loan again.
"It was hard but it just made me more hungry to play football because I knew that I couldn't sit on the bench and rot away. So when this opportunity came along it was something I had to take. And, to be honest, I don't really think about Chelsea now. I'm happy where I am and feel blessed to be at such a big club."
Although Mancienne feels settled in Germany, it would be fair to say that he is living more like an Englishman abroad than a native. "Yeah, that's true," Mancienne says, smiling. "I have German lessons and I can understand a lot but speaking is a little bit difficult. Also everyone speaks English to me. Obviously I've got an English car, I tried driving on the other side but it was strange. I've got English Sky in my house and I read English papers online. The one thing that has changed is my food because they eat so healthily out here. In England I'd be tempted by so much rubbish in the supermarket but it's not like that in Germany."
With no burning desire to return home, it may take an international call-up to get Mancienne back to England, assuming that door is still open. Six years ago Mancienne gave an interview in the Seychelles, which is where his father was born, and vowed to play for the Indian Ocean archipelago if he had not represented England by the age of 25. That birthday passed in January and a full England cap – he was called up by Fabio Capello in 2008 but never made an appearance – to go with his youth and Under-21 honours is still missing from his collection.
Mancienne laughs at the comments he made as a teenager. "I am 25 now but I still feel too young to make a commitment like I promised back then! If the Seychelles were a bigger nation, actually trying to play for something … it's so far away as well. And obviously I was born in England, I grew up there, that's where my heart lies and I want to play for them. As for coming back to England permanently, though, I haven't really thought about it. I'm really happy with my football here and I can't see myself going anywhere else."
Read more... Michael Mancienne flourishes in Mighty Mouse's Hamburg footsteps
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