Manchester City's Leroy Sané and İlkay Gündoğan - coming home to Gelsenkirchen
When Manchester City plays Schalke 04 in the Champions League on Wednesday, it will be a homecoming for two of their players.
The garage-door investment
He told UEFA.Com that "We lived in a flat on the ground floor. We had two doors and behind the back door was the backyard, where there were around 20 or 25 garages. My brother and other friends used these garage doors as goals and played football there, until it got so intense that garage doors got broken. My father then had to replace the garage doors. He was mad at us and screamed at us out the window, but we didn't really listen to him and kept playing."
The expenses on these garage doors may have been the best investment he ever made.
First assist and first goal against: Bayern München
Gündoğan moved from VfL Bochum to 1. FC Nürnberg in 2009. In his fourth Bundesliga match, on 19 September 2009, away against Bayern München, he made his first assist. The first goal for the side came on 20 February 2010 in a home match, again against Bayern München.
On 5 May 2011, it was announced Gündoğan had signed a four-year contract with Borussia Dortmund for an approximate transfer fee of €4 million. He made his debut on 23 July in the DFL-Supercup against Schalke 04, where he also scored in the penalty shoot-out. Schalke won the game but Gündoğan definitely knows how to hit other goals than garage doors in Gelsenkirchen.
Despite his history with Borussia Dortmund, the first two games that he ever saw were FC Schalke 04 games.
"My past is more centred around Borussia Dortmund, because I played for the club for five years, but of course I also look at the Bundesliga league table and I follow the Schalke results because my team-mate Leroy Sané used to play for them." he told UEFA.Com.
On 2 June 2016, Gündoğan signed a four-year contract with Manchester City, for an estimated fee of £20 million. Exactly two months later, on 2 August 2016, he was joined by Sané, that signed a five-year contract for a reported £37 million transfer fee when he finished his senior career at Schalke 04 where he scored 11 goals in 47 appearances.
Both players have since joined forces, representing both the German national team and Manchester City. But they are products of the same Ruhr district that they will be revisiting on Wednesday when Manchester City is facing Schalke 04 at 21:00 CET.
