It can be assumed that Union goalkeeper Frederik Rönnow has forgotten the scene. Or to put it another way and more precisely: It left no trauma behind. Firstly, because Rönnow never spends too much time conceding goals and is “resilient”, as they say in modern German. Secondly, because he knows that sometimes as a goalkeeper you can only take your hat off, as was the case with the Díaz goal. And thirdly, because he doesn’t let the joy of football take away from him. Rönnow has learned the latter so well that it is contagious.
At least that’s what a man who knows him better than many others claims: Michael Gspurning, 44, who was a substitute goalkeeper (without playing) in Köpenick in the last year of his active career and then became Union’s goalkeeping coach in 2017.
On a day when the gates have been unscrewed for lawn care, Gspurning is sitting in a box at the An der Alten Försterei stadium, which will host Bayern again on Wednesday, this time in the round of 16 of the DFB Cup (8.45 p.m., ARD and Sky). Gspurning says he sees his work as “teaching principles” that he expands on in exchange with the goalkeeper, and that he tries to give the goalkeeper “a toolbox” instead of just mechanically preparing him for goalkeeping. And that he sees his work as a give and take: “I learned from Frederik that you can also enjoy football. I couldn’t always do that,” says Gspurning about his student Rönnow.
This is not a banality, especially not in the case of a goalkeeper. Because, as Gspurning knows, stress is a source of errors. He knows this not only from his own experience, but also from continuous exchange with an international network of goalkeepers and coaches, from intensive study of the history of goalkeeping. For example, he is familiar with the name of the Argentine Amadeo Carrizo, who died in 2020, who was a revolutionary in his field decades before Manuel Neuer by giving continuity to his team’s game with his foot as a keeper. And had lessons ready that could be carved in marble, for example: “You become a great goalkeeper by eating 400 goals. You just have to be careful not to concede them in a single season.” Another way to get better as a goalkeeper seems to be to train with Michael Gspurning.
If you look back and review the years in which Union rose from the second division to the Champions League, you will see that the Berliners never had a goalkeeping problem. On the contrary: goalkeepers like Rafal Gikiewicz (now Widzew Lodz), Andreas Luthe (retired) or Rönnow probably produced the best versions of themselves at Union. Rönnow may not be the flashiest, but he is definitely one of the better goalkeepers in the Bundesliga.
Rönnow was initially one of several goalkeepers on Union’s list, Gspurning vouched for the Dane
Rönnow, 33 years old, 1.88 meters tall, ten international matches for Denmark, came to Berlin in the summer of 2021. Initially as a substitute behind Luthe; After his departure in 2023, the Dane became number one. It was also a risk to recruit Rönnow as a regular goalkeeper at the time: after moving from Bröndby IF to the Bundesliga, he had shown good performances at Eintracht Frankfurt (from 2018) and at Schalke 04 (2020/21). However, breaks due to injury only left a blurry picture of the Dane’s qualities.
Rönnow was one of several goalkeepers on Union’s list. Gspurning remembers how, on his days off, he toured leagues in smaller countries in order to compare the data from the scouting department with personal impressions – there is no database that shows how a goalkeeper behaves towards his defenders. In the end, Gspurning vouched for Rönnow, who actually proved to be stable in Berlin. And that gives Gspurning the keyword to say that goalkeeper training is also teamwork. In other words: a job that also relies on the work of the physio department and the designers of individual strength units. They have contributed to Rönnow’s freedom from injury and ultimately to his ability to enjoy football. In the end, of course, it’s about a goalkeeper preventing balls from landing in the goal.
There are various criteria that he uses to determine whether a goalkeeper is good, says Gspurning. For example: “The pure goal defense, which we call 2-D; the spatial defense, which runs under 3-D; and the mindset of having a winning mentality, i.e. being a competitive type and being stress-resistant.” This applies to Rönnow. “He has good control of the penalty area, which you can also see in the cross statistics, and a positional game that has become better and better through targeted tactical work and is the basis of everything. Also for the build-up game. He is good at decision-making – and courageous. And he has incredible basic speed. Especially when he moves laterally. That helps him not only on the line, but also when intercepting crosses,” says Gspurning. The statistics provider Sofascore explains it differently. And more succinctly: Rönnow has “no outstanding weaknesses”.
For a long time, Gspurning didn’t even notice one of the advantages: Rönnow’s head position. And if a colleague who was, in the strictest sense, not a specialist in the field had not brought this to his attention, it might have remained unnoticed to this day.
Gspurning, who was born in Graz and landed in Berlin via Greece and the USA, became interested in what knowledge he could integrate from other sports into his goalkeeping game during his time as a professional with the Seattle Sounders. He maintained his interest. In Berlin he exchanged ideas with goalkeepers and goalkeeper coaches from other professional clubs, for example with the handball player Silvio Heinevetter (Füchse) or Sebastian Elwing, the Eisbären’s ice hockey goalkeeper coach. People invited each other to games, talked shop, enriched each other. After a game Elwing watched from the stands, he shared with Gspurning a detail that perhaps only a hockey keeper would think of: “Frederik has great head position!”
In other words: Rönnow accompanies the game with a calmness that not only reminds us that he is blessed with Scandinavian cool. But also points out that Rönnow can “process the data better that he absorbs by observing what’s happening in the game and can also process it faster. If you have a restless head position, your brain has a harder time processing this data,” says Gspurning with some enthusiasm.
Because a goalkeeper, the game readsis neither dependent on crossing oneself three times before the game in order to invoke the rather uncertain assistance of a god; Such a goalkeeper is still dependent on constantly emerging as the hero.
Gspurning himself was a goalkeeper who, in Seattle, saw his superiors having to justify his never being included in Major League Soccer’s “Saves of the Week” selection of the matchday’s most breathtaking saves. “Because I made it unspectacular, with positional play, and made it look easy,” says Gspurning. Because, to put it another way, he was already trying to conceptually understand goalkeeping back then.
Gspurning is also the goalkeeping coach for Ralf Rangnick’s Austrians
It is therefore no coincidence that Ralf Rangnick, one of the most important contemporary theorists in the German-speaking football world, chose Gspurning as the national team’s goalkeeping coach after intensive casting by the Austrian ex-goalkeeper Günter Kreissl.
Austria has qualified for a World Cup for the first time in 28 years, and for Gspurning, who was born in Graz, his second job at the ÖFB has made his dream come true. A return to Seattle is even possible, the city is the World Cup venue. “I have developed the desire not only to work with the best, but also to compete with the best. That’s why it’s definitely a wish to play in the Champions League again one day (with Union),” says Gspurning.