Kilian Ludewig is hoping to play international football for Germany in the future, after impressing in their youth teams, and believes his loan spell at Oakwell will help him achieve that.
The 20-year-old full-back has started six games and come off the bench in four others since joining the Reds on loan in January from Red Bull Salzburg where he had previously worked with Gerhard Struber in the youth system and on loan at Leifering.
Ludewig, a regular for Germany under 20s, told the Chronicle: “I love to play in the national team. It is always a great experience and, very often, they are really nice games. It is an honour. I hope to play for the senior team in the future.”
Ludewig was one of several new signings Struber made in January. He said: “I had only heard of Barnsley because Gerhard Struber moved there. He said: “He called me and I thought: ‘yeah, it’s a big club in a good league’. I watched some videos of them and I was very happy that I could go on loan for half a year.”
Ludewig is one of two Germans at Oakwell along with Mike Bahre while there are four Austrian players as well as head coach Struber and his coach Max Senft. He said: “It has helped me a lot when I have players in my team who speak the same language as me. Also the trainer can talk to me in German. I also talk a lot with the English players.”
Ludewig believes his parent club are pleased with the progress he is making. He said: “I think and hope Salzburg are happy. They have said it is a great experience for me. I knew it would help me a lot in my career. The way the English teams play is not as much football as in Austria. It is very often long ball and it can be very hard.
“Barnsley is really good. I have my apartment. It is not such a big city as where I grew up. “I lived away from home since I was 15 years old. My English is getting better and I am learning from living in a new country.”
Ludewig was thrilled with Barnsley’s 1-0 win at QPR on Saturday which cut the gap between them and safety to four points with eight games left.
“It was important for us. We are not in a good position so we need the points. We hope we can go on on Saturday. We are good as a team at the moment. We have a good feeling. I came here when we were in the last place and not many people thought we could stay in the league but we want to show people that we can.”
