Sami raport (feat. Franz Beckenbauer & Carra)
The whole of Germany is on their knees before Sami Hyypiä, who transfered to Bayer Leverkusen in the summer. Now "Caesar" Franz Beckenbauer has given the Finn his own share of the compliments.
"Perfect! This guy is unique. I know only few defenders who are on the same level with him. I already admired him last week at the international match. Hyypiä made the right choice at almost every situation", Beckenbauer praises.
According to the statistics, in the HSV match Hyypiä won 83% of the duels.
"In addition, his pass accuracy seemed to be 100 per cent", Hyypiä's fellow Leverkusen defender, Gonzalo Castro, added.
"It is a pleasure to play with Sami. He was brilliant today, again. He has been very important for us during the season." Leverkusen goalkeeper, Rene Adler, told Eurosport.
Source I & Source II
Praise from a legend
I heard that Franz Beckenbauer had praised me in particular somewhere. Reputedly, he watched both the match in Hamburg and the World Cup qualifier during the week.
Obviously it feels good to get compliments from such a legend. We have to remember, though, that Beckenbauer has only seen two games and done his evaluation based on those games. If after the season he praises me in the same way for the whole season, then I can be satisfied. We only have nine rounds behind us and my intention is to play the whole season on a good level.
I also heard that five conceded goals in the first nine games is a new Leverkusen record. It's certainly a nice achievement and hopefully we can keep that up. When it comes to these kinds of records, it is useless to pinpoint just one player. It's about the whole team doing well defense-wise. One would feel pretty lonely in the defence by themselves.
Source
Surprising or not?
I've been playing pretty much the same way I always have, quite solidly. The attention has been a little bigger than what I got used to during my last years in Liverpool, because in Germany the interest in me, as a newcomer, is different than it was in England towards the end. -- But one thing you can't seem to get rid off, never mind where you play: British media. Daily Telegraph had created an article, the title of which suggested that I would've given advice to Liverpool centrebacks, mostly Jamie Carragher. Carra hardly needs my advice (and if he did, we could talk about it over the phone, and not converse with the help of British magazines), class player like him, and secondly, I haven't given the magazine in question an interview in three, four years. I gave those comments at one mixed zone some time last spring about what a good player is generally like: and now they were made to concern this moment and Liverpool. Not very good journalism, although very British. Things like that start living their own lives and they are quoted, which is very natural at this time of Internet.
Source
The article he is referring to can be found here.
I have two pictures of Sami from the Germany v Finland match.
