Helmut Schleich in action: "Extreme athletes in the stairwell"

"I feel more comfortable in the world of the sixties": Cabaret artist Helmut Schleich regularly watches TSV 1860 Munich's third division games on television with his son.

The exclusive interview.

• Helmut Schleich on the parallels between Söder and Löw

• "A lot of money grows a lot of power"

• Schleich's sports field is currently the stairwell

Helmut Schleich, what did the sports year bring for you?

I got through my son, the big sixties fan is Magenta.

And I watch almost all the games, so I'm almost in the middle of it.

And I have to say, I really enjoy watching it more and more often.

You can look at the lions quite well now, right?

Yes, it was last against Mannheim, for example.

Especially the three gates from Mölders.

That was great!

One is inclined to say: the old man.

Until you look in your passport yourself ...

Yes, and I don't need to say anything about overweight either.

The Mölders is far more trained than any of his critics.

Your athletic center is the stairs, isn't it?

Still.

Fourth floor with no elevator, that's something.

Allegedly every step of the stairs is synonymous with two seconds of life that you gain.

Only uphill, of course.

Schleich: In the same apartment for 21 years

Oh, are you on your way to Methuselah then?

I did the math.

I've lived in the apartment for 21 years.

I go up three times a day on average.

So I've wandered out of three weeks of my life.

That sounds like nothing from hopefully a great distance.

But when the time comes, you will see it differently.

And I keep going up three times a day.

Maybe it's been three weeks and five minutes now ...

... that the Grim Reaper can be sent away again.

Yes, that's almost a little Brandner-Kaspar story.

He is told: You have to go again because ... you know, fourth floor.

Thinking a little beyond the stairs: Many say that this year sport was more political than ever.

Starting with the racial protests in American sports.

Does sport have what it takes to be political?

Well, you don't even have to look to America.

Take, for example, the protests against Dietmar Hopp in Hoffenheim at the beginning of the year.

He was lucky that the epidemic came, otherwise it would have escalated this year.

When you see how FC Bayern enforced the arena here in Munich, you can see the power that sport has.

It was a purely political act. Sport has a lot of power.

Certain sports at least, chess perhaps less so.

And he uses it.

The fact that the Bundesliga, especially compared to culture, was able to resume games very quickly under Corona conditions, has to do with the political influence of sport.

Does the sport have too much power?

Well, sport - especially here in Munich I think first of all of football and especially of FC Bayern.

He just has a lot of money and that gives him power.

Whereby: Especially with the national team, you can now see how things can turn.

Until there are people who say: If everything becomes so commercialized, I don't feel like it.

And if there is still no success, power quickly becomes obsolete.

0: 6 in Spain ...

Sensational!

But well, they have now drawn a nice qualifying group for Jogi Löw.

No wonder the DFB sticks to him.

Because only Jogi Löw can screw it up.

There is no other coach in the world who can manage to get into trouble against Liechtenstein or North Macedonia.

Some people were probably surprised that there is a North Macedonian national team.

But Jogi Löw will make it - so that it will be close to the qualification.

And thus remains exciting.

But at least Löw has confidently expressed confidence ...

... and that is also a political act. Expressing trust is something that happens continuously in politics at the moment.

Schleich about Söder: "He is constantly expressing his trust"

Oh yes?

Söder, for example, is currently expressing trust several times a day.

He actually only trusts himself, but from the bottom of his heart.

At the moment as the toughest corona politician ...

... with the greatest success, yes.

It's also very nice to say: The virus doesn't know Christmas.

But the watch apparently already knows it.

This is the only way to understand that it says: You can meet, but you have to be home by 9 p.m.

That is only possible if you express your trust in yourself.

In the hope that people will too.

They do at the moment too.

Could one swap the personnel from sports and politics?

Ui, who would I send from sport to politics?

Okay, Jan Ullrich knows a lot about syringes, that might be interesting in connection with the Ministry of Health.

We also have a great specialist there.

And otherwise ... Anyone who's halfway there is Hoeneß.

He has the self-image that he can say something to everyone and everything and that he is heard.

Just like on the talk show he spontaneously called.

Apparently you have to reckon with him all the time.

Why not in politics too?

Isn't he too impulsive for a politician?

That is dying out a bit in politics, yes.

It is now more about always being rational.

And better to hide the fact that you have no idea.

Hoeneß is definitely different.

I think he only picks up the phone when he is sure that he is right.

Is it a coincidence that you often play him on your TV show?

I do it more often, yes, when it offers itself.

Which he often does after retirement.

But you also have to say: When you see the pictures of me as Hoeneß - you have to look twice (laughs).

It is a good thing that I sit quite well on the figure.

The central theme of the year is of course the pandemic.

You said it before: The sport could quickly get back into action.

That's right?

One has to distinguish.

I don't see why you can't do recreational sports.

I do not understand.

Where's the danger when two people play tennis?

But otherwise, sport is the only live entertainment that comes across almost as exciting on television as it does on site.

I experience that, as I said, at sixty.

That’s also good entertainment.

These contrasting baths, that's something I like.

I can do more with it than with the certainty of victory that FC Bayern is plowing through.

It is human.

Yes, even if it's often dramatic and you think: For God's sake.

It's a very emotional approach.

You can feel that with the players too.

I think they always expect the worst.

And at the same time with the best.

I think it's great.

And that is so atypical for this new Munich that has emerged in recent years.

This nouveau riche village with millions - millions related to money.

At sixty I still feel a world in which I feel more comfortable.

But those with the millions win the Champions League ...

Right, that was also this year.

Bayern got the triple.

Or was it even a quadruple?

That almost disappears again in the routine of success.

There wasn't much alternative program at the time of the final tournament.

Maybe, yes.

But in that context there were other things for me.

I am mostly in France in August and September.

This year it so happened that I was able to follow the Tour de France directly in the country.

Even if only medially.

Unfortunately they didn't come to see me in Languedoc this year.

Nevertheless, it gave me a lot of pleasure.

France has a very different attitude towards cycling.

It was nice to experience that with people who have fun.

Of course it was also a great tour.

In terms of structure.

There was a mountain stage right at the beginning, between the Alps and the Pyrenees low mountain range stages.

That is fun, also because the predictability drops.

And the outcome was accordingly.

Two Slovenes at the top.

Amazing.

That sounds like you're going to see it on site.

Yes, I've already done that.

Once there was a Vuelta international stage.

I went there. It was nothing spectacular, a flat stage.

But I just like that, the spontaneous.

People sit on garden chairs somewhere along the country road.

With a snack.

And there you look at this caravan.

This is a real folk festival.

Sure, I would do that again in a heartbeat.

Did you have a personal sports moment of the year?

I'm an extreme athlete, so there are many.

We once shot an episode in a school gym for Schleich TV.

With Django Asül, the sportsman among the cabaret artists.

That was a certain theoretical sporting moment.

Himself?

For once, I didn't do that much sport.

I wanted to ski, then there was no snow.

However, I don't have any skis either.

And haven't driven for 30 years.

The swimming pools are unfortunately also closed.

So I only have the fourth floor as a sporting moment.

After all!

Interview: Patrick Reichelt