Closeness and warmth of nest.

Jann-Fiete Arp seeks his luck in professional football, and these two attributes should help.

There is the proximity to home.

It is 45 kilometers from Kiel to Bad Segeberg.

Arp's parents live there.

A little further away, in Wahlstedt, he started playing football at the age of four.

The KSV Holstein Kiel is supposed to provide warmth that he couldn't find at Hamburger SV and Bayern Munich.

Holstein is calm in the best sense of the word.

Trainer Ole Werner says: “Fiete is a guy who integrates easily.

He should rediscover the joy of football with us. "

The first pictures are promising.

In the starting line-up in the tests against VfL Wolfsburg (1: 0) and Halleschen FC (1: 1), right in the middle of the daily units - the 21-year-old striker looks as if he has left the past few years behind: “Me feel good all around.

I play more weightlessly again, more liberated. "

Start on the bench?

And yet the return to professional football could start this Sunday (1.30 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the 2nd Bundesliga and Sky) at FC St. Pauli from the bank, because Werner should use access Holmbert Fridjonsson as a center forward.

Arp is considered a replacement for the 1.95 meter long Icelander.

In Kiel he is seen as a lucky bag, a talent that may help - but doesn't have to help.

Careful handling could help.

Because since his first Bundesliga goal as a 17-year-old professional on October 28, 2017 for HSV, a lot has collapsed on Arp.

The far too high expectations when some compared him to Uwe Seeler, the change to FC Bayern in 2019, the self-chosen relegation in 2020 to the second team of FCB in the third division - and the removal there by coach Danny Schwarz, who used others in the season finale, Arp parked in the stands and justified this with training impressions: That was the low point of his young career.

Borrow for 50,000 euros

Arp said to the NDR: “It actually didn't bother me to play in the second team. In the end, it was more the fact that I wanted to use this year as a springboard for the years to come and then it wasn't successful. It was just overwhelming because I noticed that the plan I have is no longer an issue. ”His conclusion:“ It was a year that didn't go well in terms of sport either. ”

Holstein Kiel has now loaned it for 50,000 euros; Arp has a contract with Bayern until 2024 and earns millions there. In Kiel he would like to regain the joy of the game - a joy that he had lost in his professional years at HSV: “Every time the newspaper wrote again what a great player I am, I sat at home and said to myself : 'No, no, you're not that great at all.' It then got stuck so that I no longer accepted the small positive things because I somehow got used to downplaying everything. ”He also ignored the negative:“ There was an emotionless phase because I wasn't happy anymore, but I couldn't really get angry anymore either. That doesn't suit me at all because I'm pretty emotional, especially when it comes to football.

The move to the record champions freed him from the Hamburg burden two years ago - but the bottom line was anything but a step forward. Fiete Arp now wants to do it in the Holstein Kiel jersey. And with a goal at FC St. Pauli, he would be a positive reminder of the HSV fans.