In typical fashion, Julian Brandt was remarkably laid back if not entirely bashful when the cameras flocked around him on Friday evening. His solitary goal - a wonderful chipped shot over Werder Bremen goalkeeper Michael Zetterer in the 67th minute - proved to be the winner as his Borussia Dortmund side marched to the top of the Bundesliga table for the night. Not only was it a vital goal, but it also proved to be the icing on the cake for a player that was celebrating his 300th game in the German top-flight.
However, after being dragged in front of the DAZN cameras and asked to parade such a momentous moment in his career, Brandt instead opted for an unexpected answer. “It went relatively well,” noted the Dortmund forward with exquisite ambivalence on the topic of him rescuing his side from two dropped points, before revealing that he was more concerned about his lack of sleep, following a jet-set international break in North America. “I’ll be happy when I get to my bed.”
In a way this was textbook Brandt. Ever since he made his league debut as a lightweight prospect for Bayer Leverkusen, the Bremen-born talent has jinked to the left or right whenever fans, coaches or the entire German nation have tried to pigeon-hole him into a specific role or position. As the grunge-rock hair and boy-band looks suggest, Brandt has always been a mercurial talent capable of anything. And over the years he has slowly but surely become more and more comfortable forging his own path. So much so that he now stands alone as Edin Terzic’s most important attacking player and the key cog in Dortmund’s machine.
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