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Japan international defender Hiroki Ito joined Bayern last summer but has had to wait to make his competitive debut for the club due to injury. The 25-year-old is currently working towards his comeback from a broken metatarsal. “It was hard. You start to think twice about things. But I know what I can do and that I’ll come back stronger,” Ito said in German. “Now I’m onto intensive runs and training with the ball. My goal is to win two titles this season.”
We accompanied Ito to one of his German lessons with in-house teacher Max Steegmüller, with the Hamamatsu native impressing in his interview with his knowledge of the language as he gives us an insight into his everyday life. “I’m a typical Japanese person. Politeness is very important to me. The German and Japanese mentalities are similar, for example with cleanliness, politeness and punctuality. But I’m not shy and always fight for 90 minutes on the pitch. In private, I can relax with my family, with my wife and daughter,” the defender explains of himself.
📺 Watch Ito’s German lesson here:
Interview with Ito
After arriving in Germany with VfB Stuttgart, Ito has now settled in well to life in Munich. “I feel very much at home at Bayern and in Munich. It’s a really nice city. I like the Isar river, the old town and obviously the Japanese restaurants. There’s really good sushi here.” For example, Serge Gnabry invited Ito to a nice restaurant straight after he first arrived.
Talking in his more than acceptable German – as you can see in the video above – Ito explains how he feels his best position is in central defence and adds: “It’s obviously tough to learn German, but it’s fun because it improves every day. There’s a Japanese saying that when you go to another country, you should do things like the people there.”
You’ll also hear in the video above how Ito talks about how he found things at the start with Stuttgart, his favourite Japanese manga and anime, the Bundesliga, that ‘Mia san mia’ feeling and obviously also sushi.
Last year we dropped in on a German lesson with Minjae Kim:
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