Welcome to Transfer Talk, brought to you by Bet 365, where every nail biting Neil-Neil, every bizarre

VAR, every foregone conclusion, bad pass, slam dunk, tap in, false start, dead heat,

and absolutely expected defeat is amazing.

From football to tennis and ice hockey to motorsports.

Whatever the moment, it's never ordinary at Bet 365. Welcome to another edition of the Transfer Talk Podcast and the Road Show has brought us to Munich and we're

joined by the one and only Michael Balak.

Michael, welcome along, this is the bit where you tell us all the deals that happened

during your career and reveal a few secrets of the ones that didn't. You're happy with

that?

We'll see, yes. I feel comfortable. Let's start at the beginning, first of all,

who would you say was the biggest influence on your career?

I think I have to name my parents you know because they know me from very small and

Yeah, they educated me

Yeah, as the people who were always next to me and everything what I achieved I think I achieved

because of them.

For every Michael Balak though I'm sure you'll understand that there are hundreds of players that

don't make it.

How and where were you spotted and by who?

I mean I grew up in East Germany and I did a normal way as you might be no there was a very well good education in sport there there was really focused on sport, and so I start very earlier playing on the street, you know, and then it's the year of six or seven I joined a club so the normal process and then I was

really good I was talented and then the biggest club in town in Karl Marxstadt now it's Kimnitz. They they called me for a move to to them and then I joined the sports school called Coyote S in that days with 1213 very young age.

So until the age of 18 I stayed at the town so our club played in the second Bundesliga in these days and I had a very bad first year not me personally but the club, which we got relegated, so we went down into the third league, so already with 1819, I had a big decision to make in terms of do I stay or maybe move because yeah I was a

talented player and there was a lot of eyes on me and there was already some offers so that was something yeah would what

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