Zlatan Ibrahimovic cannot face Huddersfield Town on Saturday but he may tell his Manchester United team-mates that the hosts’ goalkeeper Jonas Lossl is capable of extraordinary saves.
The pair met in December 2014 when Lossl, then of Guingamp, helped inflict a first defeat of the Ligue 1 season on the Swede’s seemingly invincible Paris Saint-Germain. Ibrahimovic thought he would avert that defeat when, with PSG trailing 1-0 as full-time loomed, he unleashed a powerful volley from six yards out. But Lossl threw up his arms to bat the ball away and preserve the win, showing “reflexes from another world”, according to the report in Le Parisien.
“If you take one moment, that’s the highlight of my career so far,” says Lossl. “Because of the situation as well. We hadn’t won enough games and PSG hadn’t lost in the league. And one of my friends was in the stands and took a perfect picture of it. I’ve got it at home.”
Home is Huddersfield following Lossl’s arrival in the summer on loan from Mainz, where he spent an up-and-down season after joining from Guingamp. The move to a third country in three years has been satisfying so far for the Dane. “Beyond football the biggest difference I’ve noticed is how friendly people in Huddersfield are,” says the 28-year-old. “And this is a very familiar club, a lot of the players have children so it’s been really nice for me and my family to come.”
There is a likeable sincerity to Lossl, both when he speaks and when he joins in a game with children at Christchurch Academy, a school in a disadvantaged part of Huddersfield where the foundation set up by the club’s chairman, Dean Hoyle, provides free daily breakfasts to 38% of the pupils. Introduced five years ago shortly after the club gained promotion to the Championship, the scheme now covers 24 local schools and has been praised for helping to improve attendance, behaviour and grades.
That is all great but Lossl knows that, if he is to stay at Huddersfield, then his performances this season must convince the club to exercise their option to buy him at the end of his loan move. So he cannot afford to make many mistakes like the misplaced pass that led to Swansea City’s breakthrough goal in last week’s 2-0 defeat at the Liberty Stadium. “That was a big mistake and it cost us the game,” he admits. “I was very happy with the manager for defending me and saying he still trusted me.”
A permanent transfer seemed in the bag after Lossl produced excellent saves to help Huddersfield keep clean sheets in their first four Premier League matches. That form suggested that David Wagner had been shrewd to capture Lossl while his stock was temporarily low following an unhappy run at Mainz. Signed by the German club the previous year to replace the Liverpool-bound Loris Karius, Lossl was demoted to second choice by the end of his first season in the Bundesliga. Many observers said he was criticised too hastily because Mainz fans were angered by the sale of Karius. “Yes and no,” says Lossl when asked about that. “The fact is [Karius] made amazing saves at important times and I didn’t. It wasn’t my best season but that was true for the whole team. My initial thought was to stay and fight for my spot. But when I heard about the interest from Huddersfield and spoke to David Wagner, there was no doubt. It has always been my dream to play in the Premier League. It doesn’t matter how I got here.”
Lossl has not been the only Huddersfield player to make a costly mistake in recent weeks as a strong start has given way to a run of one point from their last five matches. “Of course it’s not reality that we will get seven points from every three matches, which we did at the start, but the reality is we are a good team,” he says. “And we have a strong philosophy that we stick with every time. We have a style of play and sometimes it’s due to happen that people make an error. I have to work harder and be sharper and make sure I don’t do it again. That’s all I can do. But that’s the charm of my position: on another day I make the save that wins the game. If we cut out individual errors, I believe 100% we will be in every game. We may not have the biggest budget or the biggest players but, if we believe in ourselves, we can be the strongest team.”