Philipp Höhn

On Friday I finished reading the following three books:

• Pierluigi Collina: Meine Regeln des Spiels
• Michael Ballack: Sein Weg
• Zinédine Zidane: Der mit dem Ball tanzt

It was the first time I”ve been reading books about football so I was interested in how former or present players and referees write about the best sport in the world. I bought these books in the last summer but due to school work and laziness I didn”t start reading until March or April.

I started with “Pierluigi Collina: Meine Regeln des Spiels”. It’s the German version of a book written by the famous Italian referee Pierluigi Collina who was the prizewinning best referee in the world from 1998 until 2003. The probably most important matches he cited were the Champions League Final in 1999 between Bayern München and Manchester United (1:2) as well as the World Cup Final in 2002 between Germany and Brazil (0:2). Although the German teams lost these matches I have to say that he is the best and most sympathetic referee I have ever seen. In this book he describes his youth and his development to a FIFA referee along with unstrained opinions about the sport itself, functionaries and different aspects of life. Reading this book you get a look behind the scenes of professional football and are told about great moments of this man’’s career. What I liked very much about this book were the short chapters that allowed me to start and stop reading whenever I had some minutes of time left. I must admit that reading this book really changed my opinion towards football referees and made me develop a new consciousness of several behaviour patterns. I now value these person’s jobs very much.

Having finished Pierluigi Collina’s biographical work I started reading “Michael Ballack: Sein Weg”, a book written and published by “Stern”. This book is a biography of Michael Ballack with an emphasis on football. It has been written by three reporters who interviewed the German national team’’s captain for more than one year. Besides lots of interesting photos there’’s a great number of interviews with his parents, former coaches, his teammates, his friends and, of course, himself. You see him growing up in Chemnitz in the former GDR and get to know different persons and circumstances that influenced his personality. Following his way from Chemnitz to Kaiserslautern, where he played his first matches in the Bundesliga and became part of the German national team, the reader gets a good impression about Ballack’’s personality and his moral courage. After his transfer to Bayer Leverkusen where he played for three years and became a world class midfielder, he started playing for Bayern München. It’’s obvious that he never felt at home at Bayern München, probably because of Uli Hoeness who never seemed to understand Ballack’’s personality and finally got desperate about him. Having finished this book I think I understand his motives to leave Bayern München and start a new challenge at Chelsea FC.\r\nIt’’s a good book, especially if you like photos

The last of these three books was “Zinédine Zidane: Der mit dem Ball tanzt”. It has been written by a reporter who talked to Zidane mainly about the World Cup in France in 1998 which made him known as the best player in the world. Although there are some interesting passages the book left me disappointed. The interesting passages mainly dealt with his youth in Marseille where he lived as a son of Algerian immigrants and learned to win out over others. But in general, the book could be double as long as it actually is to allow the reader a deeper impression about this remarkable person. Everything was a bit flat and shortspoken. What a pity! Nevertheless there are some exciting passages in the book. The one I like the most is a description of the French team singing the Marseillais, in Marseille . I always admired Lilian Thuram singing the Marseillaise. It’’s fascinating how passionate and with all his heart he sings it. Unfortunately there’’s no book about him. Well, in French perhaps but that doesn”t count

Zuerst Südafrika, dann Frankreich. Die elf Spieler haben sich untergehakt, stehen ganz aufrecht um die Marseillaise zu hören: Laurent Blac singt aus ganzem Herzen; Emmanuel Petit mit der Hand auf der Brust; Thierry Henry mit geschlossenen Augen; Lilian Thuram mit lauter und donnernder Stimme.

“Thuthu und die Marseillaise, das ist ein Schauspiel…”

Zidane lässt sich nichts anmerken. Mit festem Blick und gerunzelter Stirn bleibt er unbewegt gegenüber dem brodelnden Stadion. Die Marseillaise in Marseille. Eine Handvoll Spieler auf dem Rasen. Die Menschenmenge in und außerhalb des Stadions… Und die Nummer 10, unbewegt, mit geschlossenen Lippen.

Singt er mit?

“Ja. Für mich. Das muss niemand sehen können.”

(excerpt from “Zinédine Zidane: Der mit dem Ball tanzt” by Dan Franck, page 54)

Tags: books, football, thoughts