Each player has their own way of settling in with a different team
It is known that certain challenges await any player who leaves the nest early for better opportunities to play football abroad. In the case of Guido Della-Rovere at Bayern Munich, he had to do a Jamal Musiala and rely on the help of his teammate to overcome the language barrier.
“The language was a big obstacle,” Della Rovere admitted (via Bayern’s official website). “I didn’t know a word of German and my English wasn’t particularly good either. At the time, Davide [Dell’Erba, a German Italian and teammate at Bayern II] translated a lot for me. I also lacked a bit of self-confidence at the beginning.
Photo by P. Schreiber/FC Bayern via Getty Images
“Everything was new: where I lived, the school, my teammates. I remember that I could hardly utter a word in the first two months. Then I got an injury that put me out of action for several weeks. It was the first long-term injury in my career, and it really bothered me, especially at the beginning.”
One of the most common things that a player like Della Rovere would do is to keep in touch with your family. “But that usually doesn’t happen proactively,” he revealed. “They visited me once a month for the first six months: my parents, my younger brother and my older sister. They are very important to me. But it’s not like I call them after every game or we write all the time. I also like being alone and draw my strength from moments like that. That’s how it was in rehab. I worked very hard on myself, physically of course, but above all mentally.”
