It's no secret that the central defense zone is now fully reserved in the German national team - a couple of some of the best, if not the best defenders in the world play there. Jerome Boateng and Mats Hummels is a combination that allowed the Germans to win the World Cup in 2014 with very few goals. Now Hummels, after a long stay in Borussia Dortmund, is returning to Bavaria, and the duo will function not only in the German national team, but also at the club level.
However, these are only two people - what happens if one of them gets injured? Per Mertezaker ended his career, and Benedict Hevedes suffers from an epidemic of injuries and is already far from the same shape as he was a couple of years ago. But the Germans have a decision on this matter - after all, there is still a central defender Mustafi Shkodran. This 24-year-old German with Albanian roots has, of course, not yet reached the level of his two senior comrades Jerome and Mats, but he is already demonstrating wonderful football. Mustafi Shkodran is now a key player in the Spanish “Valencia”, but he did not immediately appear there - it was time to consider his biography in more detail.
Start a career at Hamburg
Mustafi Shkodran was born on April 17, 1992 and began to reveal his talent from a very young age. Hamburg became his first professional football school, where he gradually grew and developed, acquiring more and more new skills. At the age of 15, he played for the first time for the youth composition of Hamburg - but then they did not consider him as a great talent. Shkodran spent two seasons in the youth of his club, after which the time for change came - a 17-year-old boy received an offer from the UK, which is an extremely attractive country for German football players (this is surprising, but true). Naturally, the young player immediately agreed and already at such an early age changed his club registration. Mustafi Shkodran became a player in the youth squad of Everton.
British failure
However, no matter how much the Germans are drawn to England, there is a high probability that they will not play there. Unfortunately, history shows that this often happens - very rarely, German football players find a solid place in the clubs of the English Premier League. The same thing happened with Mustafi. Shkodran, whose photographs were already starting to appear on the Internet, was a rising star who was not destined to rise in England. It all started more than well - a 17-year-old boy was even released as a substitute in the Europa League match. But that's all - for the two and a half years spent at Everton, the defender did not play more than a single match for the main team. He played all the games for the reserve, and in the winter transfer window in January 2012, at the age of 19, he terminated the contract with the club by mutual agreement. But this was not the end, it was only the beginning. Mustafi Shkodran is a football player with an incredible character, so he did not despair and decided to start everything from scratch. From the club of one of the best leagues in the world, playing in Eurocups, the player moved to Sampdoria, playing in the second league of Italy.
The heyday of Sampdoria
It is from this moment that the main biography begins. The football player Shkodran Mustafi was formed as a player in Sampdoria - he moved to this club very on time. The year was successful, and Sampdoria managed to get into the big leagues, so Shkodran got into a promising project, where the next year they began to trust him in the base. Naturally, not in every match - after all, a twenty-year-old guy must gain confidence himself. And he did it - already in 2013 Mustafi became a key player in the Italian club and thereby attracted serious attention from other clubs. In the summer of 2014, at the age of 22 years and in the status of one of the most promising German defenders, Shkodran moved to the top club of Spain “Valencia”, which paid eight million euros for him.
The game in Valencia
Fortunately, everything went perfectly fine here at Shkodran - he was taken not just as a talented football player for the future, but as a base player, which he immediately became. He has already played two full seasons for this club, but his affairs are far from the best. Shkodran is still more than good and is the third most powerful central defender from Germany, but he has seriously lost in the last season. It is hoped that this is only a temporary decline and will be followed by a new rise, because Germany definitely needs this defender, and Valencia is counting on it in many ways. However, this is not all that a biography can tell you. Shkodran Mustafi is known not only at the club level - he also already managed to get practice in the team - and even win an award.
Performances for the German national team
In 2014, Shkodran was called to the German team for the friendly matches that preceded the World Cup. He did not participate in three of them, but in the match with the Poles he spent all 90 minutes on the field and showed an excellent game. Speaking for Sampdoria and this match made it clear to coach Joachim Lev that this player can be counted on, so he was included in the application for the World Cup. There, it was assumed that Mustafi would sit on the bench, but suddenly he needed to enter the field in the first match against the Portuguese national team - where Mustafi took a not-so-usual right-back position. As a result, he played in this position in the match with Ghana, and then in the 1/8 finals with Algeria, where he received an unpleasant injury and was forced to miss the rest of the tournament. Fortunately, Leo realized that there was no point in putting a typical central defender on the right flank - and Mustafi spent almost all the qualifications for the European Championship on the bench, playing only in a match with Gibraltar. Ahead of the European Championship - what will Shkodran show on it?
Awards
Unfortunately, Mustafi currently has only one trophy, but it is very significant - the 2014 World Cup. But no one doubts that Mustafi has a great future ahead.