The “11 Friends” author and football whisperer Christoph Biermann has embarked on a journalistic journey that took him for eleven months alongside 1. FC Union through the 1. Bundesliga. As a newcomer, the Berliners were a promising candidate for the return ticket to the 2nd division, but jumped the quick Bundesliga death by the shovel and sunbathed justament in the second year on the summit of the German football Olympic.
The inaugural season of the great outsider and the new conditions that came with it made the story narrative interesting for Biermann. His doping agent was the thirst for knowledge – he wanted to know. For this he had to bring time and patience. Because you have to get through eleven months in the machinery of modern football. After all, he was surrounded by a crowd of young men – there is also a woman, Susi, the girl for everything – whose main occupation is not intellectual discourse, but disdainful football games.
Biermann masters all hurdles with ease, sings a party song at the right time and stays in the background with wide open eyes and ears. He listens when traumatized professionals are angry on the bench, the president formulates his union dream, the strategist compares himself to a party secretary, a goalkeeper fights invisible enemies for personal motivation. He does gymnastics with the club archivist through history and philosophizes with the Nigerian striker Anthony Ujah about the meaning of life. As I read it, I grew fond of some of the Union family members because Biermann manages to show them as humanly as they are. His empathy carries the story.
The players’ drive to work for Union on the turf varies greatly. Even if they publicly swear by the colors, fan culture, participation in the club and solidarity in the Piranhabecken Bundesliga are irritating for many club employees. The narrowness of some professionals is horrific. Most of them do not have a particularly strong will to change the world and to have a political impact. They are grateful for all the money they are allowed to earn. After all, some footballers support social foundations. That at least lets her terrible taste in music (mainstream German rap, Helene Fischer, Tote Hosen) take a back seat. In no case are all footballers idiots – 70 percent may be.
Biermann’s impressive long-term study tells in detail how a modern football team works, which is explained through cohesion. For him, the special form of togetherness is the most important secret of success. He creates strong images, we feel the focus in the player tunnel, the boredom in the training camp, the emptiness in the head after the game, the tumult of victory that makes everything forget.
And what is left for Biermann? »… What has changed the most is my view of the working life of professional footballers, everything that I wrote in the chapter on how boring professional life is. As an audience, we only ever see the outer part, the ecstasy of the match day, the everyday. We don’t notice the efforts that lead to it. Daily training, competition, injuries, insane stress. You experience that when you visit the training ground … «Biermann has written a book that is absolutely worth reading about the inner workings of a club that is a little shaking up the Bundesliga.
Christoph Biermann: We’ll live forever: My incredible year with 1. FC Union Berlin. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 416 p., Br., € 18.
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