BWoolley wrote:
Klaus - interesting you talk about his mentality. I thought one of the issues most people had with Under was his flakiness, that he could be on for a few games and then off for a bunch of them. Wouldn't that indicate otherwise? Or is that just a reflection of the fact that he is 20.
The latter. I think flakiness and mentality are two different things. He's flaky because he's so young. Consistency comes with age and experience and he has neither.
His mentality is something else though. I've seen him talk about arriving in Italy the day he turned 20, alone in a country where he didn't have the first clue about the language or the culture, and how the isolation seemed to make him annoyed rather than breaking him. Inside seven months he was so good that Di Francesco modified his system to include him. Everyone describes him as calm and mature beyond his years. Apparently this was the case in Istanbul too where he arrived at 18 and immediately ousted seasoned professionals. He's just like his playing style: fearless. Someone like Reyes never had the aptitude required to adapt to the challenges that another country and top level football posed. You don't imagine Ünder failing for those reasons though.
