Hitz: Scoring was an experience with a wow-factor
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A goalkeeper’s primary task is to prevent the opposition from scoring, but some custodians have managed to find the net themselves at the opposite end of the pitch. For instance, Sao Paulo’s Brazilian shot-stopper Rogerio Ceni, who regularly takes his side’s penalties and free-kicks, has scored over 100 times already. Paraguay’s legendary keeper Luis Chilavert is another example. He likewise took his teams’ free-kicks, scoring eight times at international level and very nearly adding to that tally at the 1998 FIFA World Cup™, only to see his effort come back off the bar in Paraguay’s group game against Bulgaria.
Yet one thing neither of those iconic figures ever achieved was to score from open play – unlike Swiss goalkeeper Marwin Hitz. On Matchday 22 of the current Bundesliga season, his Augsburg team were 2-1 down at home to Bayer Leverkusen when they won a corner in the fourth minute of stoppage time. Hitz ventured into the opposition penalty area and, although the corner was initially cleared, he would eventually pick up Shawn Parker's subsequent cross the from the right. With his back to goal, Hitz quickly spun around and fired home from inside the six-yard box to make it 2-2, rescuing an important point in the race to qualify for Europe next season.
In doing so he became only the third goalkeeper in Bundesliga history after Frank Rost and Jens Lehmann to score from open play. “I’ve never scored from open play before,” the beaming 27-year-old told Sky after the match. “Until now I’d only ever headed in an own goal!”
Feet on the ground
Several weeks have passed since then, but the St. Gallen native was happy to recall the moment when asked about it in an interview with FIFA.com, immediately breaking into a broad smile at the memory. “It was nice for something like that to happen,” he said. “Everyone in the stadium was enthralled, not only me. It was an experience with such a wow-factor that it’ll be talked about for a long time.”
While Hitz’s delight at scoring is unmistakeable, he was keen not to let matters get out of hand - perhaps due his down-to-earth Swiss nature. In the weeks that followed his goal, Hitz, who is father to a young son, declined offers of television appearances. “I’d have preferred not to have scored the goal and to have had two points more on the board,” he said.
The calmness with which Hitz talks about his strike reflects his on-field manner too. He is not the type of goalkeeper to explode on the pitch, or to charge out of his area, emotions ablaze. Indeed, one of his qualities is the composed manner in which he gives instructions to his team-mates. Hitz has been at Augsburg since June 2013 and his assured performances have played a major role in the club’s upward development since then. This year they are even on course to secure automatic qualification to the UEFA Europa League.
Before joining Augsburg, the club with the second-smallest budget in the league, Hitz was at VfL Wolfsburg for five years. There he was understudy to Diego Benaglio, who was Switzerland’s long-standing first-choice keeper too. Hitz believes training alongside him was an important experience: “He worked so hard every day. When you’re young you can learn so much by observing a lot of goalkeepers and always trying to adopt the best aspects of what you see.”
Developing his own game
However, he was determined not to merely imitate his compatriot, even if it was “certainly no disadvantage for my development to be able to watch how other keepers play the game”. Hitz describes Benaglio, four years his senior, as a goalkeeper who “goes full throttle every day”, and cites that as the reason he is continually able to play at such a high level. Although Hitz has since made that trait his own, he was unable to force his way past Benaglio into the Wolfsburg team, leading to him seeking out more playing time elsewhere. He chose Augsburg, and now feels right at home there.
It was not long before the move paid off, and when Benaglio announced his retirement from the international scene following last year’s World Cup in Brazil, Hitz was the one to benefit. He has been a regular in Switzerland’s squads ever since, although he is yet to make an appearance as third-choice goalkeeper behind Borussia Monchengladbach’s Yann Sommer and Freiburg’s Roman Burki. Hitz, characteristically, refuses to publicly challenge for the No1 jersey, instead preferring to let his performances play him into contention under new national team coach Vladimir Petkovic.
“The pecking order is clear,” Hitz said. “But maybe [I’ll make my debut] in the next friendly. That’s what I’m hoping for and I’m trying to showcase what I can do by playing as well as I can as often as I can.” The arrival of a new coach, and the changes that invariably brings, could well be to Hitz’s advantage. Petkovic is keen for the side to play a new possession-based style, and it is a philosophy that sits well with Hitz, who insists Switzerland should take the game to their opponents more, rather than merely reacting to their approaches.
“It makes sense given the players we have available to us,” Hitz said. “We’ve now got some very good guys who can take people on and score goals too.” And while modesty prevents him from saying it, he could even include himself in the latter category...