As Christian Fuchs left the Leicester City training ground for the last time he felt conflicting emotions. On the one hand, his incredible six-year adventure at Leicester was finally over. He had intended to stay just three years and then return to his family in their adopted hometown of New York, but summer after summer he extended his stay by another year, and then another, and another. He couldn’t tear himself away.
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When the Austria international agreed to join Leicester in 2015 he had expected to be playing for a team fighting relegation and he knew he may even end up playing in the Championship. Instead, he became a Premier League champion, Champions League quarter-finalist, and, finally, an FA Cup winner. There was sadness that the greatest period of his playing career was over.
However, there was also another emotion.
“I felt strange and also relieved,” Fuchs tells The Athletic. “I know that sounds stupid or weird because I really didn’t want to go, but I also felt relieved for personal, family reasons. I have lived apart from my wife (Raluca Gold-Fuchs) now for nine years, the kids ever since. Ethan (his stepson) is 12 years old now, my two little ones are six (Anthony) and three (Katherine). My middle son I have probably seen about eight or nine months of his life. That is why I am also relieved and happy that things came to an end somehow.
“But at the same time, I was sad. I had such an intense experience. There were some great times, and some not so great, but they only brought us closer as a family, the Leicester City family. That makes it so much harder to say goodbye.”
Fuchs is back with his young family now and is reflecting on his career and future plans from his upstate New York Hudson Sports Complex, a former correctional facility.
Like so many of his title-winning team-mates, Fuchs didn’t come through into the professional game in a conventional way. Born in Lower Austria, he was inspired by his father to take up football. Originally, he wanted to follow his goalkeeping dad between the posts.
“I wanted to be a goalkeeper as well but I only went in goal once and conceded seven goals and after that, I didn’t want to go in goal anymore,” jokes Fuchs.
He began as a striker at SVg Pitten and joined 1. Wiener Neustadter SC aged 11, and by the age of 15 he was playing in the senior team.
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“Playing with those men aged 15 was challenging but it was a challenge I needed and wanted,” he says. “I found youth football too easy and boring because I was dominant. I am not blowing sugar up my own ass but it was simply not challenging enough to play youth football at the age of 15. The coach was Heinz Griesmayer, who I founded the Fox Soccer Academy with (the HQ for which is in Aylestone Park, not far from the King Power Stadium, and is mainly based at the complex in New York) and who became one of my personal coaches at SV Mattersburg. He pushed me into the first team because he saw I needed it.
“It gives you an edge. You need to know how to use your body against grown-ups. They were probably the age I am now. If I am playing against someone 20 years younger than me I will push them as much as I can. It is a tough lesson to go through and it pushed my own development.”
There was plenty of tough love when he joined Mattersburg aged 17 and signed his first professional contract. He played with the fathers of current Austria internationals Marcel Sabitzer and Michael Gregoritsch, who would watch on from the sidelines, but the young Fuchs found the step up in standards and pressure hard.
“Those five years at Mattersburg were definitely the toughest schooling overall,” he says. “It was four tiers higher and I wasn’t much older, and now I had to fight against professional players.
“Those players they don’t care, they will take your legs and give you bollockings you couldn’t imagine. I hated some of them and was afraid of many of those players. Then when I moved to Bochum in 2008, after five years, the captain of the team came to me and said, ‘I knew from the start when you joined the club you had the potential to make it’. Then it really made sense. We had an open conversation which made me understand why he was so tough on me.”
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Fuchs made his international debut aged 20 in 2006 and two years later, despite Austria’s early exit and defeat by Germany, his performances at Euro 2008 earned him a move to the Bundesliga with Bochum. It was tough at the perennial strugglers, but a loan move to Mainz transformed his career when Fuchs worked with a young up-and-coming coach called Thomas Tuchel.
“We were the same calibre of team as Bochum, the same status, but we had the season of our lives,” says Fuchs. “We were playing at the top of the table (they eventually finished fifth). That was all to do with Thomas Tuchel. It was him.
“I came to Germany as a left winger and played at left-back a few times at Bochum but when I came to Mainz, Tuchel made me into a left-back. It was a great experience and great step to go to Mainz and play under him.”
Schalke swooped for him in the summer of 2011 and the family atmosphere of Mainz was replaced by the scrutiny and pressure of playing for a huge club.
“We did well (they won the German Cup and qualified for the Champions League for three consecutive seasons), but with Schalke fans you can only underachieve,” Fuchs says. “Whatever you do you can never fulfil their expectations. It is impossible. The demands are always to win the Bundesliga and the Champions League, and the cup and the Super Cup.
“The only way to satisfy fans and for them to recognise the season was successful was beating Dortmund (in the Revierderby). That was all that mattered. We could be behind them in the table but if we beat them twice in the season it was the best season Schalke had.”
Fuchs doesn’t dwell on the circumstances of his departure from Schalke in 2015. It wasn’t a pleasant time as he was effectively forced out of the club, but then an opportunity arose to play in the Premier League.
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“My agent told me about Leicester, although everyone knew it as ‘Lei-cester City’, and I thought, OK, let’s see. I didn’t know at that stage the club was known as the Foxes and the club badge was the Fox,” says Fuchs, whose name translates from German to Mr Fox.
“I went there and it was cool. I had a nice couple of phone calls with the manager, Nigel Pearson. He didn’t need to persuade me because I wanted to go to the Premier League anyway. I showed up and Nigel was gone. It was crazy.”
As Fuchs himself says, the rest is history, although to the fans, players and everyone at the club it actually feels more like fantasy.
“You can’t expect a team that was almost relegated the season before to go on and win the title! No chance. Come on, no chance. But we did,” Fuchs laughs. “Beautiful. It felt surreal, absolutely. But it doesn’t feel surreal anymore to see them where they are, how they have progressed. It feels normal. This is their identity now.”
Fuchs left Leicester in the summer after winning the FA Cup during his last season at the club (Photo: Visionhaus/Getty Images)As Fuchs speaks, sat at a stone chess table outside the main complex, he is overlooking the main pitch, which is named and dedicated to former Leicester owner, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha. The darkest time during Fuchs’ stay at Leicester was the helicopter crash that claimed the life of Khun Vichai and four others in 2018. Fuchs says he owes the club’s owners a huge debt of gratitude.
“They care,” he says, in a rare moment of seriousness. “They don’t just care about being successful, they care about the players individually, the team and all the employees. They care about the supporters and people of Leicester. That makes it very unique to anything I have ever experienced elsewhere.
“I don’t know another club where you can just go up to the owner and talk to them at any time. Or you dance with him when you have fun together. This doesn’t exist. No other owner would do that.
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“Look at all the owners of all the Premier League clubs and I don’t know anyone you can just go up and talk to without making an appointment with people five layers below him. Or having a drink and a dance like we did with Vichai and his son, Top. That doesn’t happen.
“Both were horrible dancers, but the best people you can imagine.”
It was a case of more light than dark at Leicester. Fuchs himself was a source of entertainment with his series of No Fuchs Given challenges, including “egg roulette” with Jamie Vardy, and the “backside challenge” with Robert Huth.
“The moments that made me laugh the most I can’t talk about, censored,” he says. “But just the other day I was reminded of one when I scored my goal against Crystal Palace.
“I had just started the No Fuchs Given challenges and one of those was flicking Shinji Okazaki’s ears after rock, paper scissors. Literally as it happened, I scored the goal and the first person I saw was Shinji. So, OK, Shinji let’s do it again. It was not staged. I got to flick him again. It was moments like this, they are priceless. It was just live in front of everyone and it was in the moment.”
The driving force behind Leicester’s success was that chemistry within the squad, the bond, the band of brothers of players who were so different in many ways but had shared a similar spirit.
“That makes it a little harder not to be able to come back,” Fuchs adds. “But there is nothing I can do about it. We had the rule: if we went out, everyone went out — but that doesn’t mean Riyad Mahrez showed up! At least he showed up late. There were certain rules but everyone stuck to it and everyone wanted to be a part of it. Everyone accepted it.
“That camaraderie we nurtured by just forcing some players at times, but they saw how enjoyable it was to be together as a group. That worked well. It was really a tough period not to be able to do it over the last 18 months.
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“That is what makes Leicester the club it is. Everyone has to accept it. When a different manager comes in they have to understand that there are some different rules at Leicester, but those rules only support the success, the manager and his work.”
Together, Fuchs and Leicester have enjoyed great success, and he believes even more is waiting for Brendan Rodgers’ young, exciting squad.
“The club is in amazing shape,” Fuchs says, often referring to his former club as “we”. “I know it has been twice now that we have missed out on the Champions League by a fraction, but I am not worried those boys won’t bounce back and make this happen for Leicester. They have the talent and the potential.
“We were in the top four for 90 per cent of the season and dropped out at the end. It was unfortunate, but what we have shown from the season before to now is that we have learned. I am sure Brendan, knowing him, we have learned from last season as well to make it better for the new season.
“That is why I am excited for the new season because the potential and talent we have is unbelievable, incredible. It just makes you wonder how much higher they can go. I will be watching as a fan.”
As for Fuchs, he has his hands full. The continued development of the Hudson Sports Complex goes on with a new indoor dome being installed. He has promoted his No Fuchs Given clothing line while making his debut as a pundit on ESPN during the Euros, while he still has his Fox Academy eSports team and he is selling off some of his most famous moments in a Leicester shirt as NFTs.
But he isn’t finished with football and has joined new MLS franchise Charlotte FC and is set to start the new season at the Bank of America Stadium in January.
“One and a half years ago I met with Steve Walsh (former Leicester head of recruitment) and he told me about an interesting project he was starting,” Fuchs says. “This was before I extended my contract with Leicester.
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“He told me about what is being created in the MLS and this new franchise. It was interesting, but then COVID hit. I was at Leicester for another year and even if COVID hadn’t have happened I would have taken Leicester over anything else at that stage.
“Now, circumstances have changed and the contact with Charlotte never stopped. The people showed a lot of interest and were eager to get me on board. I don’t need a lot of convincing when Steve Walsh is involved. It’s Steve Walsh! He basically scouted me for Leicester and helped make me a Premier League and FA Cup champion! There were not too many questions I needed to ask. If he says it is good, then it is good.
“It is not a big football area and it is the first club in the North and South Carolina area. The people on board who are working to build the club have great experience in the football business. The owner, David Tepper, also owns the Carolina Panthers and we will be playing in their stadium. I went there three weeks ago and it is unbelievable. It will be fun.
“The excitement is crazy and the goal is to have the stadium close to full for the home games. Maybe 50,000 for home games. The excitement is incredible.
“The MLS has taken major leaps in the right direction. The league is only 26 years old but it has a lot of potential. There are steps they still need to take to come anywhere close to a European level, but the advantage is they can learn from what European leagues have gone through.
“Perhaps in 10 or 15 years ago, depending on how open the people who run the league are to developing it, it will be a dominant league worldwide.”
Fuchs had harboured an ambition to become an NFL kicker when his playing days were over. He hasn’t given up on that dream.
“When you have an owner who owns an American football team and a soccer team, and they both play in the same stadium… maybe something will happen,” he adds. “It is not off the table.”
(Photo: Michael Regan/Getty Images)
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