Our system detected that your browser is blocking advertisements on our site. Please help support FoxesTalk by disabling any kind of ad blocker while browsing this site. Thank you.
Jump to content
davieG

'I'm so happy I'm on the sofa' - Leicester City title-winner Robert Huth opens up on retirement

Recommended Posts

Posted

Centre-back talks hanging up his boots, his Leicester City memories and the late Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha


ByJordan Blackwell
12:00, 13 FEB 2019UPDATED12:07, 13 FEB 2019

Robert Huth became the first of Leicester City’s title-winning heroes to hang up his boots but he’s not regretting his decision to call it quits.

Huth was released by City last summer after a final season decimated by injury and the centre-back announced his retirement last month.

It came with typical Huth humour, the German calling out a Twitter charlatan.

“I woke up one morning and on my notifications there was this guy saying I was about to join Derby,” Huth told The Sun.

“It was total b******t. I hadn’t kicked a ball for four months. I had to put him straight.

“It was great for 17 years but it’s done. I don’t have to cling on to being a footballer any more.

“You know yourself, you make the decision and 10 seconds later, there’s a big sigh of relief. You don’t have to be a macho a******e any more, as can happen in such a competitive environment.


 
“I remember watching Liverpool v Man City last month and thinking: ‘I’m so happy I’m on the sofa. There’s no way I could keep up.’”

Huth won three Premier League titles and earned 19 caps for Germany during his career, but it is the glory with City that will stick with him.

“We were seven points from safety when I arrived from Stoke,” he said. “It was the best thing I have been part of – from bottom of the league to champions in 18 months.

“When I have a s*** day, I put on YouTube. I just put in ‘L’ and up comes Leicester.

“Most players want to win something and I’m buzzing that I did. In 20 years’ time, we will be sitting here and still talking about it.

“Most days I wake up smiling.”

Having left the club last summer, Huth watched the tragic events of last October’s helicopter crash from the outside.

Christian Fuchs, Robert Huth and Jamie Vardy with late Leicester City chairman Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha in the directors' box at the King Power Stadium
0_Robert-Huth-7.jpg
But the centre-back knew City’s late chairman Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha well and reiterated what others have said before.

“I was watching the (West Ham) match on TV,” Huth said. “Suddenly they said: ‘We have some really disturbing news.’

“What a legend he was. He loved being around the lads.

“The position he was in, as such a mega-wealthy guy, most guys would say ‘yes’ to him.

“Then he would be stepping into the dressing room and there would be 6ft 4in guys grabbing him, joking with him and treating him as one of us and vice-versa.

“He genuinely loved being with the lads, having the complete opposite of his business life where he says and they do. The stuff you hear was all true. The donations he made, so generous. It’s just a shame that it took a tragedy for all that to come out.

 
“(During the title campaign) he was giddy. He was loving it. How could you not?

“People were singing his name. We are lucky that people know us for what we do. He was not used to it. He was getting recognition.”

This season’s ding-dong battle at the top of the Premier League between Liverpool and Manchester City reminds Huth of Leicester’s rivalry with Spurs.

Surprisingly, given his hard-man reputation, a fear of failure was one of the defender’s biggest sources of motivation.

“What we managed to do well at Leicester was to block everything out,” he said. “We didn’t listen to anyone.

“We were in a unique position where everyone wanted us to win it, except Spurs supporters. With bigger teams it’s different.

GettyImages-528947236.jpg
Robert Huth kisses the Premier League Trophy he helped win for Leicester City. (Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
“There are haters, people who don’t want Liverpool. For us, it was about blocking the positivity out and people telling us how great we were and focusing on the job, doing the training.

“It’s hard to hear people saying: ‘Liverpool aren’t going to do it.’ But the challenge is the same – block it out, go game by game.

“But we had extra pressure on us because the club had never done it. It was worse pressure.

“With eight games to go, you know you could do something amazing. You don’t want to look back in 10 years, look at the table with you in first with four games to go and then finish third.

“That would have been a real f***** when you were 45 and telling your kids.


 
“We were playing after Spurs most of the time, so the gap was always smaller.

“We watched so many Spurs games together, me and Kasper (Schmeichel) and Simmo (Danny Simpson).

“It was like: ‘Lose, make it a bit easier for us!’ But they kept on winning.

“To get a chance to do what we did, you don’t get it very often.

“Fear of failure was my number one energy source. It made me super-focused.”

 

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/im-happy-im-sofa-leicester-2539466

Posted

Huth retired like a legend and at the same time owned fake agent John Harriott.

Posted

Love him. Can't overstate how important he was in the great escape, title win and CL run. I know people talk of the Vardy-Mahrez-Kante triplets but I think he deserves to be put alongside them. But then I suppose they all do.

Posted

For me there were three major factors that led to the great escape, and hence the momentum that carried us into the next season and ultimately the title.

1  Kaspers return from injury

2  Vardy finally found his shooting boots in the PL

3  WE SIGNED HUTH

An absolute no nonsense old fashioned man mountain of a centre back.  Legend.

One of my abiding memories will always be when he got his shirt literally ripped from his back over his head (against Palace I think) and he just stood there in his vest, gave the ref a look and then just got on with it. 

 

When we got him from Stoke a lot of people just thought of him as some clogger but he already had two PL winners medals so he was no slouch and the experience he brought to us helped to steady the ship and the rest is history.  We should give him some sort of coaching role.  He would be a great motivator I am sure and some of our young defenders would certainly benefit from his Nounce.

Posted

Great guy and total legend with a great sense of humour. Shame about his free kick abilily, or lack thereof, although he said they always crept in the top corner in training and wouldn't want to argue with him.... lol :)

Posted

That header vs Spurs.

That brace vs Man City.

That freekick vs Stoke.

 

All brilliant moments of jubilation, disbelief and outright comedy. What a player. Absolute rock for us, still can't believe how cheaply we got him.

 

Wonder what he'll end up doing next, if anything. Seems pretty content taking it easy, and who can blame him particularly after the last few years? Wouldn't surprise me if he goes a similar route to Crouch and does a podcast, seems to have the right kind of humour for it. I'd certainly lsiten

Posted
5 minutes ago, Xen said:

That header vs Spurs.

That brace vs Man City.

That freekick vs Stoke.

 

All brilliant moments of jubilation, disbelief and outright comedy. What a player. Absolute rock for us, still can't believe how cheaply we got him.

 

Wonder what he'll end up doing next, if anything. Seems pretty content taking it easy, and who can blame him particularly after the last few years? Wouldn't surprise me if he goes a similar route to Crouch and does a podcast, seems to have the right kind of humour for it. I'd certainly lsiten

 

Posted

Despite a relatively short stint at the club, a bona fide Leicester legend. Scored some of my favourite goals of the title campaign and generally just seems to have life sorted. What a bloke.

Posted
12 minutes ago, Xen said:

That header vs Spurs.

That brace vs Man City.

That freekick vs Stoke.

 

All brilliant moments of jubilation, disbelief and outright comedy. What a player. Absolute rock for us, still can't believe how cheaply we got him.

 

Wonder what he'll end up doing next, if anything. Seems pretty content taking it easy, and who can blame him particularly after the last few years? Wouldn't surprise me if he goes a similar route to Crouch and does a podcast, seems to have the right kind of humour for it. I'd certainly lsiten

I hope he becomes a pundit and trolls the tw@s like Savage jenas Murphy and Carrag her. 

Posted
1 hour ago, davieG said:

Huth won three Premier League titles and earned 19 caps for Germany during his career, but it is the glory with City that will stick with him.

“We were seven points from safety when I arrived from Stoke,” he said. “It was the best thing I have been part of – from bottom of the league to champions in 18 months.

“When I have a s*** day, I put on YouTube. I just put in ‘L’ and up comes Leicester.

“Most players want to win something and I’m buzzing that I did. In 20 years’ time, we will be sitting here and still talking about it.

“Most days I wake up smiling.”

He ****ing loves it, worra bloke

Posted
1 hour ago, bovril said:

But then I suppose they all do.

They all had the season of their lives, if you say Huth you have to say Morgan, then Fuchs, Simpson, Kasper but then you realise it was each and every one of those eleven. 

Posted
7 minutes ago, Stadt said:

They all had the season of their lives, if you say Huth you have to say Morgan, then Fuchs, Simpson, Kasper but then you realise it was each and every one of those eleven. 

Indeed. Love it. Might stick the DVD on tonight and get pissed. 

Posted
22 minutes ago, Stadt said:

They all had the season of their lives, if you say Huth you have to say Morgan, then Fuchs, Simpson, Kasper but then you realise it was each and every one of those eleven. 

and not just the eleven.  For me it was always a twelve/thirteen. When Shinji had worn himself out chasing everything after an hour Ulloa stepped in and held the ball up, not to mention weighing in with a few precious Goals.  King also did his bit when called on as did many other squad members

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...