Jörg Butt is hardly your typical goalkeeper. The 34-year-old rates as one of the unofficial team spokesmen at FCB, but he is a much more restrained and thoughtful character than many of his fellow shot-stoppers, rarely issuing controversial or critical statements in public. The respect thus earned, plus a series of confident displays, explain why you the fans have voted him Player of the Month for April.
He also tops another list, although it is one you’d hardly expect a number one to occupy: of the 30 penalties he has taken in the German top flight, he has converted 26, making him the most successful current Bundesliga player from the spot. Butt would happily step up again under certain circumstances, as he explained to fcbayern.de: “If it’s what the coach wanted, I’d take a penalty.”
Interview: Jörg Butt
fcbayern.de: Jörg, you’ll be 35 just after the last game of the season. Will you be celebrating as the owner of a champions’ medal?
Jörg Butt: “Becoming a league winner for the first time would obviously be a terrific gift. The team and I will give everything in pursuit of it.”
fcbayern.de: There are still challenges ahead, for example your former club Bayer Leverkusen on Tuesday. Will the game be a bit special for you?
Butt: “I was there for six years, and overall it was a very successful spell. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who we play, because all I’m interested in now is success with Bayern. I spent a year abroad, and I’ve been here nearly a year, so Leverkusen is quite a while ago really.”
fcbayern.de: Uli Hoeneß called for a fresh start after the change of coach. Is that what’s happened?
Butt: “I think it was visible in the games against Mönchengladbach and Cottbus. There’s more optimism, and there really is the sense of a fresh start in the dressing room. We still believe it’ll rate as a very good season.”
fcbayern.de: You’ve been first-choice keeper since the match in Barcelona. You said at the time you weren’t surprised at the decision to switch keepers. Why?
Butt: “What I said was that the switch didn’t surprise me as much as it did people looking in from the outside. A lot of people regarded me as the number two keeper and nothing more, and that was certainly the case at the start. But I don’t think anyone really had the chance to appreciate what I can do. I spent a season out of the Bundesliga, I didn’t play that often in Lisbon, and that’s what I was judged on. But I wouldn’t have come to Bayern if I didn’t think I could play here.”
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