Former Bayern Munich and Wolfsburg striker Mario Gomez is the latest footballer to pen a compelling article for the continually impressive Players' Tribune.
The German gave a great account of his life in football including a magnificent anecdote about why Jay-Jay Okocha inspired him to fall in love with football, but he also beautifully summed up his struggles when coming up against the toughest defender he ever faced in his career - Nemanja Vidic.
Vidic remains a Manchester United fan favourite to this day for his Spartan-esque defending, and Gomez paints a vivid picture as to how difficult he was to face at the peak of his powers.
Sometimes you’ll go up against keepers like Casillas — the “penalty killer,” as many of us call him. Other times, there’s that one defender that, for 90 minutes, just destroys you.
There is one in particular who will always stand out in my mind.
Nemanja Vidić.
I don’t think I’ll ever forget playing against him when he was in his prime at Manchester United, or whenever Germany and Serbia went head-to-head. For 90 minutes, he’d destroy me. To this day I don’t understand how a 6′ 3″, nearly 90-kilo Serbian man could be everywhere at once.
It seemed like everywhere I went, he was there already waiting for me. I’d turn right, and he’d be there. I’d turn left, and he’d already be cutting me off. Even if I managed to pull a move on him, I’d look up a second later and he’d be back in front of me, blocking my shot.
As a striker, your job is mostly to forget. When you have someone like Vidić marking you, and it’s misery for 89 minutes, all you have to do is forget everything. Forget the 89 minutes. Because in the 90th minute, you might finally get your chance.
That is outstanding.
Gomez gave a fascinating account of how Giovanni Trapattoni and Louis Van Gaal impacted his career, and gave honest assessments of his time in Italy and Turkey, before explaining how much playing at Euro 2016 meant to him.
He's also surely delighted that Nemanja Vidic retired around this time last year.
You can read Gomez's article over on The Players' Tribune.
