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Hoeness farewell: The pilot leaves the ship

2019-11-15T15:40:54.028Z


With Uli Hoeneß, the man leaves the stage, which stands like no other for the development of the Bundesliga. He has made German football what he is. And was even overrun by it.



When Uli Hoeneß picked up the phone on Sunday, the certainty grew that his time was coming to an end. The president of the big FC Bayern, who calls like a pensioner live at the football table "Doppelpass" at Sport 1 to express his indignation over the discussion! With all respect for the "double pass": Hoeness used to sit with Anne Will and Sabine Christiansen and explained the world to millions of people.

There is a popular journalistic gimmick to illustrate how long someone has been active in public: refer to historical events that happened at the time when that person appeared in the spotlight. Uli Hoeness entered 1970 as a young player the stage of the Bundesliga. That was a year after the moon landing, in Germany Willy Brandt had just taken over the government, the Americans fought in Vietnam, the Beatles broke up, for three years there was at least already color television. So you can say that it was a long time ago.

From 1970 to the present day, Uli Hoeness, FC Bayern Munich and the Bundesliga have been inseparable, and coach Joachim Loew is right when he says that Hoeneß has shaped German football "like no other". Even more than Beckenbauer, in any case more than Löw.

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Ulmer / imago images

Otto Rehhagel was often referred to as the "child of the Bundesliga", Hoeness was then the adolescent, the adolescent and then the adult of the Bundesliga. All the developments that football has taken in those decades since moon landing and color television can be traced back to the name Uli Hoeness: commercialization, globalization, modernization, boulevardization, the exaltation of this sport.

It's almost a funny phenomenon that Hoeneß, of all people, has stylized himself as the Keeper, the Football Conservative, who abhors the Internet, sends the crew in a crash leather outfit to the Oktoberfest, and dribbles a round of sheepheads with the players. He was actually the driver to make football in Germany a big business.

He himself tried to save his old methods through the times of big business and at the same time to shoot at the big wheel of the event machine Bundesliga. That probably made him so special: this balancing act between laptop and leather pants, between folklore and big money. The fact that the way to conduct transfers as a form of buccaneering in order to fish the best players away from the competition may have worked in the 1980s and 1990s, but is now no longer the state of the art, he realized only late. Secret meetings at motorway rest stops were no longer state of the art at some point.

In the external presentation unpredictable

In fact, his second presidency, the return to prison, was no longer a happy one. Hoeness made more and more the impression that the strings were no longer in the hand. That made him erratic, in the external presentation unpredictable, even for his own club. In the past, his attacks, the alleged outbursts of anger, were in reality deliberately set pin-pricks, agreed in a club and elaborated and then calculated. Not any longer longer.

His tone grew rougher, sometimes at the edge of the vulgar. The fine gentlemen on the Bayern board, who have taken over the command now, can and must not have liked. More and more, his performances under "Oh, yes, the Uli just" deducted, just good enough for entertainment in private television and social media. There were hardly any lyrics about him that got along without the long-running "fallen out of time". All this culminated in the whistles at the annual general meeting last year. Hoeness said he wanted to leave before being chased out of the yard like others. He just barely got that moment.

When Hoeneß announced his departure, caricatures appeared, which showed him as a stylized Bismarck, after the famous "Punch" drawing: The pilot leaves the ship. The comparison is not that wrong. Bismarck, the polarizer, the man of power, the man who determined everything, was in the end also one who was portrayed as, and perhaps was, yesterday. And its meaning remains undisputed.

Leave a luxuriant collection of quotations

Hoeneß was the Mister Bundesliga for so many years. His duels with Werder manager Willi Lemke, with Cologne's Christoph Daum have become league history, his skirmishes with the media are the same, in 50 years he has left a lush citation collection of sayings that everyone knows from the "fucking mood for which you but you are responsible even "to the famous" That was not yet ". Not least, he has already enriched as an active by his capital penalty miss in the European Championship final in 1976, the sports coverage of the word "night sky". Which closes the circle to the moon landing again.

In this week's week before the annual general meeting, the laudators will bid farewell to each other, who will have to be careful not to become an obituary. Hoeneß has therefore also quickly tried to destroy any impression, here draw someone from the public back. To keep out, Hoeness never could, as often as he had announced in advance. The only question is how much weight his word will have if he no longer exercises a responsible office. If the Hoeneß comment from the off then really only football folklore.

He certainly did not deserve that and his life for FC Bayern.

Source: spiegel

All sports articles on 2019-11-15

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