Bastian Schweinsteiger's life as a novel - by Martin Suter!

Created: 01/20/2022, 16:17

By: Katja Kraft

Get along great: star author Martin Suter and soccer star Bastian Schweinsteiger.

© Marco Grob/Diogenes

Martin Suter has written a book about the life of soccer star Bastian Schweinsteiger.

"One of you" is not a classic biography, but a novel.

The athlete is enthusiastic: "This is my life!"

A novel about one of the best footballers we have in this country. And he starts – with an own goal. Martin Suter, who in turn is one of the best authors in Switzerland, has the rogue on his back. It must have given him thieving pleasure to begin “One of You”, subtitle: “Bastian Schweinsteiger”, with such a disgrace in the opening scene. With this twist he sets the tone: This is not a factual biography. This is literature. "I'm a novelist, not a biographer," emphasizes the 73-year-old Swiss at the humorous press conference that Diogenes Verlag is now hosting. The book will be published on January 26th, the media hype is great, everyone wants to know: How much truth is there in this novel, which is based on the life of the ex-FC Bayern superstar?

The best moment of his career - for Bastian Schweinsteiger, that was his farewell game in 2018 from FC Bayern Munich. © Sven Hoppe

So that not only the author himself judges, his two main characters were also flown in. Yes, not only Bastian "Basti" Schweinsteiger is the hero of this novel. His wife Ana Ivanovic is the heroine. In the book as well as in Schweinsteiger's life. This becomes clear in the looks that the two, who have been married since 2016, throw at each other at the press conference; in the way in which she, a little ashamed of all the fuss about her happiness in love, says that she already noticed on the first date with Basti that he was "the one". And when he then says the nice sentence: "Through Ana I learned what love is", then even the otherwise cool moderator Marcel Reif seems a bit touched. And Martin Suter smiles knowingly. As if to say, "See, I knew this was a good story."

Bastian Schweinsteiger emphasizes that the most beautiful moment in his private life was the wedding to Ana Ivanovic in 2016 and the birth of their children.

© Babirad

Is she.

Actually, there are even two stories.

One begins in Oberaudorf in the district of Rosenheim, where we get to know Basti.

The other begins in Serbia, which in 1989, when we first met little Ana, was still called Yugoslavia.

Both biographies run parallel.

Until the two find each other - and as a reader you have the feeling: This can't be a coincidence.

Martin Suter also tells the life of Ana Ivanovic

One of the first things footballer Bastian Schweinsteiger said to author Martin Suter when they met to discuss the book was that he doesn't believe in coincidences.

And: that his wife's life is much more exciting than his own.

Suter, a very attentive listener, wove the athlete's convictions together and turned them into a novel about success, destiny, determination, the will to win, family and again and again: love.

Bastian Schweinsteiger is enthusiastic about the novel about his life

Suter now uses the term "novel" to protect himself, but since his two heroes are alive and well and can read, one important question remains: do they like it? Radiance at Ana Ivanovic. Yes, she had tears in her eyes when she first read it. And Bastian Schweinsteiger, who through his Ana not only discovered true love but also the world of books for himself, turns to Suter the best compliment one can give an author: "I still remember how he gave me his first draft of the Romans, that was 340 pages. For me, as someone who really hadn't read much up until then, quite a lot. But I read it in one sitting and didn't want to change anything. Yes, this is my life.”

Martin Suter: "One of you.

Bastian Schweinsteiger".

Diogenes, Zurich, 384 pages;

22 euros.

The book will be released on January 26th.