Manuel Akanji is actually a professional athlete, but for whatever reason the Swiss citizen is asked about hairdressing issues at regular intervals.

In “Akanjis Revier”, a column that he wrote for a while for a Swiss online portal, he once dealt with football clichés, with expensive cars, tattoos, hotel nights in front of the game console and hairstyles, which are of course quite important.

“We are often in the spotlight, so you want to look well-groomed,” he explains. During the European Championships, however, he now has to grapple with an affair that has become a “hairdressing affair” in Switzerland because the “Nati” had a hairdresser flown in during the preliminary round who not only cut Akanji and a few others' hair, but also bleached it . If some of the Swiss selection players were not fundamentally under suspicion of being a little aloof, that would be a trifle. But as it is, Akanji feels compelled to give a few explanations.

He says he can "completely understand" the criticism of his team's three preliminary round matches.

But, "the hairstyle has absolutely no effect on the performance on the pitch".

That is certainly correct, but what is also clear: The Swiss have a special talent for offering attack surfaces, including Akanji.

Perhaps that is one of the reasons why the majority of those interested in football have not yet recognized the high level at which Dortmund has been playing for many months.

Maybe it would help him if he got a tattoo from top to bottom and occasionally slipped an opponent into the advertising gang.

But Akanji's reputation suffers from the fact that he sometimes looks a little snuggly.

"A terrific misunderstanding" "

On this Monday evening (9 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the European Football Championship, on ZDF and on MagentaTV) the Borussia Dortmund central defender will face the legendary French attackers Kylian Mbappé, Antoine Griezmann and Karim Benzema - “obviously three very good ones Striker, ”Akanji admits. But even now, in the days of the EM, he only partially succeeds in countering suspicions of a certain complacency.

“We have to play at the highest level,” he said at the round of 16 against the world champion, but: “We all know that if you want to go far in a tournament like this, you have to win against an opponent like France.” And anyway: “We have also won against big teams. ”A long time ago, the authors of the Dortmund club magazine noted that Akanji was sometimes perceived as“ aloof ”,“ on the verge of arrogance ”. Such assessments are, however, "a terrific misunderstanding".

If you take a closer look at Akanji's achievements, such questions quickly become uninteresting anyway. In the BVB environment, there was a lot of discussion last season about Mats Hummels and Emre Can, and in the end also about Lukasz Piszczek, but the most solid in the defense chain was Akanji. Because his performances were more consistent, because he made fewer mistakes. BVB supporters who saw Hummels struggling against the French attackers at the beginning of the European Championship are now presented with a kind of direct comparison.

Yann Sommer is sure that his defense chief will do a good job on Monday. Akanji is “unbelievable in terms of quality”, says the Swiss goalkeeper, “he exudes a lot of security, is a great personality, a very intelligent boy”. And he's pretty brave too. "You can't just defend and hide against an opponent like France," he says. The past has shown: "If you just defend, you'll get a goal at some point and then it's very difficult to flip the switch again."

In plain language, this means that he is not worried about counter-opportunities from the French, which almost seems a bit arrogant after this mixed Swiss group stage. But Akanji has the potential to emerge victorious from an evening of duels with world stars like Griezmann, Mbappé and Benzema. If only his team plays on a similar level.