Germany Watch: Antonio Rüdiger shakes off early spelling issue at Real Madrid

Antonio Rüdiger has been a Real Madrid player for about three months, but so much has happened since his departure from London-based club Chelsea FC. The VfB Stuttgart graduate recently sat down with Sport1 in what was a chill and reportedly fun interview session with the 29-year-old. A rather extensive one at that too.

Sport1 began by asking Rüdiger how he has so much time on his hands; he was on the back of a Madrid derby win over Atletico Madrid and has just been called up by Germany coach Hansi Flick. The spirit of Thomas Müller was present as Rüdiger joked that his family wasn’t there, which was why he was able to do the interview.

“It’s easy, boys. My family isn’t here right now anyway, I’ll take a lot of time for you today!” Rüdiger said.

Photo by David S. Bustamante/Soccrates/Getty Images

After congratulating Rüdiger on the win over Atleti, Sport1 had a bone to pick with the German international. Apparently spelling lessons aren’t a thing in Madrid as Rüdiger’s name has been misspelled by the folks at the Santiago Bernabeu, which he didn’t mind but he corrected it anyway.

“No, it wasn’t that bad”, he laughed. “My little cousin drew my attention to it. He sent me a photo of my locker and asked: ‘Toni, what’s going on there?’ I forwarded this directly to our team manager — with the note that you’re welcome to omit the ‘U’. He then apologized to me 1,000 times. But like I said, that wasn’t a problem for me. I had to laugh about it myself.”

Photo by Helios de la Rubia/Real Madrid via Getty Images