“The trophy became my friend”- Klein

“The trophy became my friend”- Klein

It will be incredible for me to be back in Cologne. The atmosphere, the event in general, the top clashes - everything at the FINAL4 is simply electrifying.

It will be my sixth time in the LANXESS Arena for this event and after being ruled out by a knee injury in 2015 and being a simple fan in the stands, the hunger to be back on court is great.

Despite the fact that we are the underdogs this year, it is my clear will to fight for the trophy again. Two of my three individual Champions League titles were celebrated in Cologne, and after I initially had a certain problem with the trophy - as you cannot drink champagne out of it – now I love it.

Every time I see this trophy in our club office, I can feel its character. Thus, it will be great to raise it again in my last international match for Kiel. The trophy honestly became my friend.

I do not like to think that much about saying farewell prior to the FINAL4, my emotions are different: It is more about enjoying every second, every moment I can spend with the team. There’s so much to pay back fort those incredible ten years the club has provided me with.

I am the last one in our team, who won all three Champions League trophies with Kiel, but funny enough two of those are in Cologne.

With Thierry Omeyer and Christian Zeitz present, there will be huge reunion of former Kiel players this year - including our former coach Noka Serdarusic, who was the reason, why I joined Kiel in 2006. It was my desire to learn from him.

So I dream to have the final against him and PSG on Sunday.

My first appearance in Cologne was the one with most lasting memories. In 2010, we were down by six goals twice, in the semi-final against Ciudad Real and in the final against Barcelona - and twice we took the victory.

So we managed to end this curse of losing finals against Spanish teams.

Two years later, the Champions League trophy was the icing on the cake of a perfect season; winning all possible titles and finishing the Bundesliga season with 34 wins from 34 matches. We made history - a season like this is unrepeatable.

Now we are back, and I am looking forward to those special emotions in Cologne.

Concentration is one thing, emotions are more important, mainly for me. I try to push myself, my teammates, and the fans in the stands to the limit.

I could re-live some of those great emotions when I had my comeback match against Veszprém and in those outstanding quarter-final legs against Barcelona - and I hope to continue like this in Cologne.

And it is funny everything that happens in the last few weeks of my long period at Kiel, like being awarded the EHF Player of the Month Award in April.

I was totally surprised, but now I want to take the special power from the fact that the female Player of the Month for April, Swedish Isabelle Gullden, made her personal dream come true by winning the Champions League with Bucharest. She is my role model now.

I hope you all will enjoy the VELUX EH FINAL4 in Cologne, either in the arena or on TV. And I hope you all cross your fingers for us, the underdogs. So there’s nothing else to say than #HelloCololgne!