Jeffrey Bruma: An awesome feeling

“I had some good conversations with the coach,” says Bruma, for whom it was unusual not to be playing regularly for the Wolves. “Domenico Tedesco showed me his point of view, and I knew there were chances to play here.” Bruma made 242 appearances prior to joining Schalke, playing in the Bundesliga, the Dutch Eredivisie, the English Premier League and the Champions League. He’s also been capped 25 times for the Netherlands senior team. “Therefore, playing 90 minutes against both Fortuna and Bayern wasn’t a problem,” explains Bruma. “On the contrary – it was an awesome feeling to have played two whole matches.”

A whole new level

The defender explains that he’s at peak fitness: “I’ve reached a whole new level so I can approach my new challenge at 100%. As a team, we’ve got a few double gameweeks ahead of us, which every player will be needed for.” The feedback from Domenico Tedesco has been positive thus far, reports the Wolfsburg loanee. Bruma is pleased with this: “It does me good!”

The Dutch defender has clear targets for the upcoming weeks and months: “I want to help the team, so that they have a successful second half of the season. The end of 2018 didn’t go so well for Schalke, but the team has potential and a lot of quality. I’m convinced that we can still celebrate plenty of wins together.” Bruma believes that you’ve got to go into every game like you would a final. The next ‘final’ comes this Saturday against SC Freiburg.

The clash with Manchester City in the Champions League comes four days later. “We want to get the best possible result against one of the top teams in the world at the moment,” says the 27-year-old. Despite the match being on the horizon, the thoughts of the team shouldn’t yet turn to the game in Bruma’s eyes: “First Freiburg, then City!” exclaims the centre-back.