Mickel's Life As Third Goalkeeper: The Art & The Difficulty Of The Role

Last HSV game 2019

Tom Mickel is the third goalkeeper at Hamburger SV, and if everything goes according to plan, he won’t be between the posts or in the squad at the weekend. The 35-year-old talks to Transfermarkt about his role, the motivation to always give his best, his status as a crowd favorite and the small number of appearances in his career.

At the start of the 2024/25 season, Mickel was able to feel what it’s like to be there again. The actual number one, Matheo Raab, was out for a long time with pneumonia, so Daniel Heuer Fernandes moved into goal and Mickel onto the bench. The keeper experienced the first five competitive games up close and personal, and after the international break he should slip back into his usual role. “There’s nothing better in team sports than being there when you experience the climax of a week together – tension builds, you get into a mode. The joy is great, especially on the drive to the game and during the warm-up. That’s a lot more fun than just watching on TV. And when you’re a bit older, it’s even more special because there won’t be as much of that,” says Mickel.

His last professional appearance was more than five years ago: He was in goal for the 3-0 win against Duisburg on the last matchday of the 2018/19 season, HSV’s first in the 2nd Bundesliga. Since then, he has played four more regional league games with the U21s. “I train every day to be ready,” emphasises Mickel. “Every goalkeeper trains as if they were number one – that is our credo. In terms of content, we are all on the same level and everyone gives it their all.” Nevertheless, there is a clear division of roles, and under normal circumstances Mickel is not part of the squad at the weekend, no matter how well his training week went.

When asked how he manages to stay motivated, he answers: “When you’re doing competitive sport, you have fundamental expectations of yourself. The bar is high and you try to reach it every day.” And conceding goals still annoys him: “If I stop caring about it at some point, then I have to do something else. After every goal I still ask myself whether I could have saved the ball or whether I could have done something differently. This ambition is always there on the pitch, so I don’t need to worry about it. I just enjoy standing in goal and saving balls.”

Mickel on the European Cup season with HSV: “Will be remembered forever”

Mickel sees his role less as a challenger than as a supporter. As number three, he tries to focus on his fellow goalkeepers: “I aim to try to raise our level as a group a little bit through my performance. I’m not just trying to make myself better, but the others too. It’s about helping my teammates to understand the game better or to grasp certain situations better, and to convey the content of the coaching team from a different perspective.”

When he extended his contract for another season in May, Mickel stressed that as the oldest player in the squad he had the responsibility to lead the way every day. Although he is not captain (Sebastian Schonlau) or vice-captain (Ludovit Reis), he still acts as a leader and has often been a member of the team council. Mickel has been with HSV for more than 12.5 years and probably knows the club better than anyone else. But he always has to judge when it is appropriate to speak to the team as the third goalkeeper. He describes finding the right moment as “the great art and the most difficult part of the role.”

“There were moments when I thought I had to say something, but in retrospect it wasn’t the right time. Or I held back when it would have been appropriate. It’s about finding the right mix: being authentic, but not playing the teacher who knows everything better. I have gained a few experiences that I want to pass on, but I can’t pretend that I know everything, because that’s not the case. The other players should have enough space to gain their own experiences,” he explains.

Mickel has been playing in Hamburg again since 2015. He first moved to HSV in 2009, when he was 20 years old and had won the European Championship with the German U19 team the year before. At the European Championships he sat on the bench, with Ron-Robert Zieler in goal. “The goal was always to get into professional football, to play in the Bundesliga, to play in front of a lot of people in a big stadium,” he says of that time.

In his first year at HSV, Mickel took part in what was to date the last European Cup season in the club’s history. “It’s just cool to be there at that time and to be part of that team. The team back then was full of top international stars: Zé Roberto, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Joris Mathijsen. We had so many good players that I had only known from television for a long time. It was an amazing feeling that I was suddenly able to train with them. That will stay with me forever. Looking back, I think I should have got myself one or two more jerseys. Unfortunately, I missed that,” he says, laughing.

Mickel has to think of one teammate from that time in particular: Frank Rost. “I was afraid of him in the first few years. That’s no lie! The tension was pretty high when you had to shoot a ball to him because he had a clear idea of ​​how the ball had to come. And if it didn’t come the way it was supposed to, the mood would change pretty quickly. Then he wouldn’t even look at you and would just look at the goalkeeping coach. It was actually less stressful playing my first Bundesliga game. He was simply an apparition, 2 meters tall, 1.5 meters wide. An original that you don’t see very often these days. I had a lot of respect for him as a personality and goalkeeper. When he invited me to dinner one day, the fear also subsided,” reveals Mickel with a grin on his face.

Mickel: “I have managed to make people associate something with me”

He stayed at HSV until January 2013, before moving to SpVgg Greuther Fürth. He rarely played there, too, and after two and a half seasons at Kleeblatt he returned to Hamburg. Mickel has been a professional for more than 15 years, and his CV shows just 14 appearances – six for HSV, another eight for Fürth. When asked whether he would feel he had made the most of his opportunities if he were to end his career tomorrow, he replied: “I’ve thought about it a lot. I know that I haven’t played that many games, and haven’t been able to show that I’m a good goalkeeper that often at the weekend. But I’ve managed to make people associate something with me.”

Mickel is a fan favorite because of his close ties to the traditional Hamburg club. “I was able to show them that there are people at HSV who are passionate about what they do. So I’m also happy to say that I took a different path than others. But I’m still proud of that because I don’t know many guys who have managed that with so few games,” he emphasizes.

But it is not as if he had not once considered leaving HSV for a second time: “When Sven Ulreich came to HSV, I first thought that it would make no sense for me to take another step back. Before that, I was number two behind Ferro (Daniel Heuer Fernandes; d. Red.)But the club and I spoke to each other and those in charge quickly made it clear to me that I am an important part of the club and the team and that I should help us get back on our feet. The appreciation was sealed with a long-term contract extension and it was clear to me that I had a job to do here.”

Coach Steffen Baumgart recently highlighted Mickel’s importance at a press conference: “If anyone has the diamond in their heart, it’s Tom. He shows that not only in the dressing room, but also outside. He loves this club with every fibre of his being. And he has earned that. And not as a regular goalkeeper, but as a player who was always in the back row. I believe that he not only has a huge standing within the team and the coaching staff, but in the entire club. You need people and types like Tom, so we are happy that he is here.”

We have the chance to be the first to achieve promotion with the club.

But why does Mickel feel so connected to HSV? He has a clear answer: “Because the fans and people in the club always stay loyal to us at the start of a season. No matter where we play, the stadium is full and people think positively. In the 2nd division, the attitude is that we will get through this together. Sometimes you really wonder if they have forgotten everything that happened before. It could also have been that at some point they thought, I’m not going to watch this anymore, I’m fed up with it. But the love they carry within them is palpable. And if the fans think like that, why should we players think differently?”

He no longer thinks so much about “the fact that we have been in the second division for a long time. Of course nobody is happy about that and that is not our aim, but the club has been there for more than six or seven years. This block is negligible when you look at the more than 135-year history. I see it like this: We have the chance to be the first to achieve promotion with the club. In the end, that would be talked about more than the fact that we have not managed it for so many years.” He is “really keen to get it done together here. I want to look back on that later. That is why I am so happy about the renewed contract extension. And we will give everything this season to make sure it works out in the end.”

Text and interview: Pascal Martin