Hardly any footballer’s career begins in the F-youth team of a professional club – most of them start at a small club in the neighborhood before moving to a youth academy. The SZ visited the home clubs of prominent footballers, coaches and managers. Here is the seventh and final part: Hertha Munich and Sandro Wagner.
Some men know from their own biography that they meet several women with the same first name who have a special meaning in their lives. The defining name for Sandro Wagner’s footballing life would probably be a slightly antiquated one today: Hertha.
However, it is not two women of this name that characterize the sporting vita of the assistant coach of the German national soccer team, but clubs – even if the Berlin woman who goes by the nickname BSC and to whom he dedicated three years of his career as a young professional soccer player likes to be called “Old Lady” is referred to. With her, Wagner was promoted from the second to the first league and later established himself in the Bundesliga.
The other Hertha is also a little older, founded in 1922, it was Wagner’s first sporting home. FC Hertha Munich is based in the southwest of his hometown. When he was five, his parents registered him there. And Sandro immediately stood out. “I noticed during the first training session that he was an absolutely exceptional talent,” remembers his coach at the time, Horst Rossmeisl. The quality feature was in itself a test that Rossmeisl did with all his little kickers: “I throw the ball to them, 99 out of a hundred five-year-olds pick it up with their hand. Sandro stopped it straight away with his foot.”
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Sandro Wagner is awarded top scorer at an indoor tournament with FC Hertha in 1996 (the photo comes from a VHS video tape).
(Photo: private)
According to Rossmeisl, Wagner, who is now 1.94 meters tall, was by no means tall for his age. “He was rather petite.” The assistant coach at the time, Alexander Ruml, has a different memory: “Sandro already had a height advantage over the others.” The two agree that the boy was already so good in the F-youth that the tactic was obvious: “The other six passed the ball to him, and then it went boom and bang for him.” says Rossmeisl.
It also became apparent early on that Wagner was “not a very easy character,” as Ruml emphasizes. Sandro always represented his opinion, even as a primary school student. As soon as the referee whistled for a game, the boy “grew horns”. And Ruml confirms Wagner’s exceptional class. “We coaches just had to say: ‘You’re going to fill them up’ and it started.” Under the eyes of Horst Rossmeisl and Alexander Ruml, who wore tracksuits with the H. Trapattoni and A. Trapattoni flocking for fun, Wagner scored an incredible number of goals; in his best season there were said to have been 178. That year, Hertha’s youngsters even became Munich champions.
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Well-kept facility, but no clubhouse: the area on Höglwörther Straße, where FC Hertha is based.
(Photo: Claus Schunk)
Regardless of whether he is petite or has a height advantage: the brunette boy did not go unnoticed by the scouts of the big clubs. He was discovered by FC Bayern’s talent scouts at an e-youth tournament in Germering, and ex-national player Wolfgang Dremmler himself quickly brought him to Säbener Straße, says Rossmeisl. He was always in contact with his parents, with whom he was friends outside of football. “Sandro just had to do it, he knew what he could do,” he says.
Rossmeisl has not had anything to do with FC Hertha for 20 years, in contrast to his former assistant coach Alexander Ruml and his wife Andrea, who works voluntarily in the office. It is a thriving recreational sports club with 20 youth teams, only the first men’s team has recently gone downhill a bit. Two years ago they were still involved in the district league “with limited resources” (Ruml), then they were relegated twice and are now in the middle of the table in the Munich district league, Group 4.
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Today colleagues, then competitors: Sandro Wagner as a U19 player at FC Bayern (front) against today’s national coach Julian Nagelsmann in the TSV 1860 jersey.
(Photo: Frinke/Imago)
You won’t find any devotional items from Sandro Wagner, old jerseys or photos here, also because there is no meeting place: the clubhouse of the district sports facility on Höglwörther Straße, which Hertha shares with FC Croatia, has not been in use for some time. The corona pandemic began during the renovation in 2020, and the club has not found a new host since then. “Our entire club life has fallen apart,” says Andrea Ruml contritely. Her husband Alexander adds: “Hertha is suffering.” It is now becoming apparent that things could start again after the turn of the year, with new seating and a tap – even that is currently missing.
Wagner actually wanted to come to the 100th anniversary but then had to cancel
There has been contact with Wagner again for over a year: on the occasion of the club’s 100th anniversary in 2022, Andrea Ruml contacted the then coach of SpVgg Unterhaching. She left her cell phone number in the office, and Wagner answered promptly: “He was super nice and friendly on the phone and was very interested in how we were doing at Hertha,” says Andrea Ruml, whose older son Felix – a goalkeeper – used to be played with Klein-Sandro in the F and E youth teams and later got a taste of third division air under Christian Ziege at Haching. Wagner agreed to come to the anniversary party on the phone, but then had to cancel at short notice because he and Haching were in the middle of the end of the season.
It cannot be assumed that the 35-year-old now has more time as assistant to national coach Julian Nagelsmann than he did back then. However, his former trainers have no problem trusting him with the new role: “He is an excellent trainer and a straightforward guy,” says Alexander Ruml.
That’s not the only reason why they at FC Hertha hope that contact with their most famous former youth player will become more intensive again: “Sandro is a real guy, he’ll definitely come to visit us sometime,” says Andrea Ruml, and her husband emphasizes: “We are too not just any club, but his hometown club.”
(Appeared in the series: FV Oberaudorf/Bastian Schweinsteiger, VfB Einberg/Marius Wolf, SV Eintracht Straßbessenbach/Marcel Schäfer, TSV Krumbach/Thomas Tuchel, FC Issing/Julian Nagelsmann, Sydney Lohmann/SC Fürstenfeldbruck)
