Mario Gotze: Germany have demonstrated that we stand for a modern brand of football

Tell us what you’re most looking forward to about the summer?
Well that’s my first World Cup – you can imagine that many things are crossing my mind. Primarily, I hope it’s going to be successful.

Will it be weird to face Jürgen Klinsmann when you play the USA?
I don’t know Jürgen Klinsmann as a coach. Therefore, I can’t really say anything about it.

Has working with Pep Guardiola this season improved you as a player?
He is an outstanding coach. It’s special to train with him. He cares a lot about football and his players. As you can see, the team has a lot of fun working with him.

Does it make a difference to the national team that so many of your team-mates are playing for Bayern Munich now?
I already played with lots of the guys, as there are also many players from Dortmund in our squad. Every player in our team knows what he has to do on the pitch. Over the years, we continuously developed as a team and know each other quite well.

Should we expect to see Germany going for the full tiki-taka approach this summer?
I think we have demonstrated that we stand for a modern (brand of) football already. Nevertheless we can still improve and that is what we will try to do in Brazil.

Your first international goal was against Brazil – fancy doing that again this summer?
Of course. It was a goal in a friendly match. I remember the goal and the game intensively as it was my first goal for the German national team.

Do you think Germany could be the first European team to win a World Cup in South America?
Like I already mentioned, we want to go step by step and focus on each game we are facing. Then we will see how far we come and if we can make it to the final.

Who is your favorite team?
There are as many good teams as there are many good players. I think that many teams have the chance to win.