Ex-Jahn goalscorer in an interview
While the Bundesliga clubs are starting to prepare for the season these days, Prince Osei Owusu is still planning individual sessions. With a market value of 550,000 euros, the 26-year-old is the most valuable German center forward without a club. However, Owusu does not want to be put under time pressure, he wants to find exactly the right one from the numerous inquiries.
“Of course, team training and the preparatory games cannot be replaced one-for-one, but I don’t want to rush into this important phase of my career just to be back,” explains Owusu in an interview with Transfermarkt. “I know I’m missing an important phase of a potential new club now, but I’m as fit as I can be. I train daily with my personal trainers in the gym and on the court. The load and intensity are adjusted like hard preparation at a club.”
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A good dozen first and second division teams from Germany and abroad knocked on the door of Owusu. “I am grateful for every club that is interested in me. It is important for me that I feel completely comfortable in the team and in the club and that I feel full trust. I know football is a competitive sport and you have to work hard for everything, but for a striker the trust of a club is essential! And everyone has to want it,” says Owusu, who has already been linked to Eintracht Braunschweig or Karlsruher SC in the rumor mill.
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“I’m honored that the requests for me are there, but it all has to make sense. Whether it will continue for me abroad or in Germany, time will tell. The talks are in full swing and I have complete confidence in my advisors,” Owusu continued, for whom the first step out of Germany “plays a big role”. “Because I also have the feeling that major career advances are possible abroad. There are so many players who didn’t play a major role in the 1st or 2nd Bundesliga but are now active in the top leagues abroad. But no final decision has been made in this regard. Everything is open.”
Owusu wants to be a central figure – relegation with Jahn Regensburg is particularly difficult
What is important for Owusu is not where, but which projects are behind the inquiries. “In terms of sport, I have clear ideas and goals. I don’t want to go somewhere just to be there, I want to be a central figure in my new club. I want my new club to have the same ambitious goals as I do because I don’t want to be relegated anymore. I’d rather like to get promoted or play for titles,” says the attacker, who has been relegated from the second division for the past two years: first with Erzgebirge Aue and last May with Jahn Regensburg.
“Basically, a descent is never nice and always hurts a lot. Feelings of guilt plague you for weeks, especially towards the fans who have supported their team wherever they could. For me personally, the relegation with Regensburg was particularly difficult to cope with because we had the quality for much more in the squad,” says Owusu, according to which the team “didn’t show a certain mentality. In the beginning things were going great for us and we surfed the wave of success, but with the long negative streak after the winter break we just couldn’t get the blockade out of our heads to turn things around. We often didn’t act as a united front on the pitch. But in general I am a friend of always looking for mistakes in myself first.”
Things went very well for Owusu, especially in the second half of the season. Jahn’s best scorer with a total of ten goals brought the Regensburgers three important points with his goals. “I worked a lot mentally on myself during the break, and my belief in God shaped me even more. It sounds banal, but when you believe in something, you have a firm anchor and your perspective on things changes. For a while, maybe subconsciously, I only saw football too much as a job. Looking back, the pressure I put on myself to make it so that I could also give something back to my family often inhibited me. Today I know that the real pressure is on others who have to work hard from morning to night to earn their daily bread. I thank God that today I have the privilege of being a professional footballer and that I have found the love and fun of football again.”
Either you work or you’re out!
After Owusu drew attention to himself in the youth field with good goal quotas, in 2013/14 he was top scorer in the B-Junior Bundesliga with 23 goals for VfB Stuttgart, the transition to the professional field was initially difficult for him. “There are many factors at play. So I have to admit that the step back then, to play in the 3rd league as an A youth at the age of 18, was perhaps too early,” admits Owusu. “In my head I wasn’t that far yet, but athletically I was. In football, however, the head plays a major role and influences your performance. And the pressure got stuck in my head. In the pro business you’re thrown in at the deep end, you either work or you’re out! I had to really understand that when I was young.”
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Owusu could have done even better last season, no player in the 2. Bundesliga was caught offside more often than he was. For the attacker, risk is part of his game. “My game is always level with the line, i.e. the last row. I’m a forward who also likes to hit the deep runs. So I can start behind the defenders, I also tie my opponents and create free space for my team-mates,” explains Owusu. “The last away game in Braunschweig, when I scored to make it 2-1, is a good example of what that should look like in practice.”
Owusu is aware that he can sometimes lose an unfortunate figure or be the focus of criticism due to a lack of goals. “Basically, I am open to criticism if it is factual in content. However, as soon as it becomes personal and defamatory, I find it distasteful. What many do not want to understand is that we professionals are only human and not robots! In other words, everyone has good and bad phases in a long season.” Unfortunately, racist insults are not absent either. “I think it needs to be a lot tougher! Too many people get off scot-free! I also find it hypocritical when, for example, associations only initiate actions when something happens. Often enough I also hear that one shouldn’t look at certain statements so badly or that it wasn’t meant that way… In general, I can’t understand how one can insult someone because of their skin color or origin. I demand harsh penalties!”
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