World champion about unsuccessful club search
Kramer: “This feeling really hurt me”
December 10, 2024 – 9:55 a.mReading time: 2 minutes
The ex-national player has been without a club since leaving Mönchengladbach. And no longer asked, as he now reveals. It hurts Kramer that even the clubs to which he actively offered himself didn’t want him anymore.
Christoph Kramer never expected this in his life: after leaving Borussia Mönchengladbach, the 2014 world champion is no longer in demand as a footballer at clubs below the Bundesliga. As the 33-year-old reported in the weekly podcast “Copa TS” by Tommi Schmitt and Studio Bummens, no club wanted to sign him in the summer – not even without a salary.
“This market for people over 30 is somehow not really there. And I misjudged it too. I thought that when I came to the open market, everyone would say: Please come to me. That wasn’t the case at all,” said Kramer.
In a relaxed, conversational tone, the midfielder reported that he had charged his cell phone and turned it on loud in anticipation of calls. “I’ve already proactively approached one or two clubs and said: Hey, don’t you want to? I don’t need any more money either. I’d just be up for the whole thing,” said Kramer.
But it wasn’t the case that he couldn’t save himself from offers. “And also the ones where I proactively offered myself and said, hey, watch out, I’m playing for nuts here, they also said in the end: no.”
Kramer terminated his contract in Mönchengladbach, which runs until 2025, in the summer. Since 2018 he has been working as a TV expert for ZDF and also for Prime Video for the Champions League. At the beginning of December he played for the small-field national team at the World Cup in Oman, with which he was eliminated in the round of 16.
Kramer now admitted that it hurt him not to receive any offers as a footballer. “Having this feeling that I wasn’t really wanted as a player anymore really hurt me. In other areas, everyone wanted me, which is what I usually do, but in this area, I would call it manageable,” he said.