When he arrived at the WERDER academy at just nine years of age, his current teammate Ömer Toprak was already an established player in the Bundesliga, and now they are both playing in the same team. Fabio Chiarodia doesn’t just benefit from the support of the 32-year-old veteran on the pitch. “In the first training sessions of my first few weeks, I didn’t dare say anything, not even once. Whenever anyone asked me something, I would completely freeze. I was so very nervous and would like to take this time to thank Ömer in particular: he helped me so much to settle in. Thank you!”
But other first-team members also supported the Italian from Oldenburg. “I can still remember the first time I went into the dressing room and was introduced. Someone asked me what country I was from, and I answered ‘Italy’, which prompted four or five of the lads to start singing an Italian song, because we had just won the EUROs, and that helped me feel welcome from the start.”