Bayern Munich goalkeeper Jonas Urbig has not often had a misstep in his time with the club.
A young, eager, and talented player, Urbig might have had his first bout with letting a reporter get under his skin.
It is impossible to know the tone of the question, the background of how it was asked, or any history, given the context we have access to, but Urbig was asked whether something could have been done about VfL Osnabrück’s goal after the game.
“Have you ever been a goalkeeper? He shoots, the ball
drifts a bit and hits the top corner. I’m very, very self critical, but in this case congratulations to him. That was unstoppable,” Urbig said (as captured by @iMiaSanMia).
Maybe that was an innocent response and genuine. More often than not, though, it can come across as more of a “how dare you ask me that?” kind of response.
How should we perceive it? Let’s dive in.
BFW Analysis
To be clear, we are not accusing Urbig of being difficult or purposeful. After a game, emotions can run high and sometimes athletes have not had time to decompress. As we have seen in the past, those situations can lead to extremely honest answers and sometimes contentious tones — and there is a caveat with this exchange for Urbig. We do not know if there is an existing relationship between Urbig and the journalist or if, perhaps, the young goalkeeper had been warned by teammates about the person. Anything is on the table at this point.
Urbig did two things with his statement — one good and one bad.
Let’s start with the bad. When reacting to the question, Urbig answering with another question made it — at least — seem like he was offended that it was even asked. Again, we do not know the tone or intent of the question or his response, but it was an odd tactic.
In reality, Urbig’s positioning was not great on that play, but he was also correct in detailing just how awesome the shot was by VfL Osnabrück’s Robin Meißner. Could it have been stopped even with perfect positioning? Maybe, maybe not, but as a young player there was a better way to respond to the inquiry.
If reporters learn they can bait that kind of response, it probably will not end that line of questioning.
On a positive note, Urbig did give a nice, concise breakdown of the shot (which was incredible) and the youngster did appear to attempt to recover from what was not a great start to that response.
The lesson, though, is to absorb the question and own the result. It all could be much ado about nothing, but handling the media is a key skill that — if mastered — can alleviate a lot of pain down the road.
Urbig will have many lessons to learn in football, but this off-the-field trick of not letting questions from reporters get under your skin (or at least visibly get under your skin), could help make for a much more smooth (and less controversial) career.
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