A year before ending his professional career, German Per Mertesacker revealed that his life path could have taken a completely different turn, but the player decided to heed his grandmother's advice.
"When I was 20-21 years old, I still lived with my parents and maybe I didn't choose Bayern club because it wasn't liked by my grandmother.
She didn't like the Munich team and passed away before I made my choice. I guess she went to heaven saying, 'Just not with me,'" recalls P. Mertesacker.
At that time, the talented defender belonged to the Hannover club and had several offers.
In addition to Bayern, "Hamburg" and Bremen's "Werder" teams also invited the footballer to join their ranks.
"The Munich team wanted to form the whole German national team, but Werder had players like T. Borowski, T. Frings, M. Klose, and F. Baumann, and several other national team representatives, so I wanted to fight it out with this club," he shared.
In 2011, P. Mertesacker moved to London's Arsenal club, where he played until the end of his career.
