National goalkeeper Eike Immel (almost) always knew what to do on the pitch. He was one of the best keepers of his time. But away from the lawn, “at some point luck slipped through his fingers,” as the author of his biography now writes about a life “between genius and madness.”
At some point in his eventful life, the point was reached where Eike Immel had to admit to himself: “I lived off the fact that I was doing badly.” It was the time when the former international goalkeeper received large sums of money on talk shows and from the tabloids when he spoke about his vices and transgressions. Gregor Schnittker’s recently published book with the simple title “Eike Immel. The Biography” tells the story that this gifted footballer, who has earned unbelievable money in his career, even found it difficult to accept these irregular “alms” from the media.
Lothar Matthäus would like to say something right at the beginning of his interview for the book: “First of all, I have to say: Eike was a giant goalkeeper and also a really good guy. We always had a lot of fun with the national team.” What Matthew says there will be read again and again in Immel’s biography. The man from the small Hessian town of Erksdorf is indisputably one of the absolute top goalkeepers Germany has ever seen. And if Immel hadn’t resigned from the national team after the EM 1988, he would probably have become world champion with the German national team two years later instead of Bodo Illgner.
“But he was always a bit of a buffoon”
In fact, none of his former footballing companions would ever say a bad word about the guy and person Immel. He has always been popular with fans and colleagues alike. But in the very next sentence, Matthäus addresses another side, another truth from Immel’s life: “But he was always a bit of a airhead. Economically, you noticed that back then. First salary, first Porsche. He also has money when playing poker lost.”
“Money” is also the all-important and defining theme of the book. Eike Immel never learned to deal with it sensibly at home during his childhood. A friend from earlier days says: “Eike was always very generous with money. Maybe he also thought he could buy sympathy with money or gifts. It was already the case back then that he had problems dealing with money. He was very generous. He would have needed someone at his side to regulate these things. But his father was like Eike. He came to us at Sporthaus Schmidt and shopped for the whole of Stadtallendorf.”
Ben Redelings is a passionate “chronicler of football madness” and a supporter of the glorious VfL Bochum. The bestselling author and comedian lives in the Ruhr area and maintains his legendary anecdote treasure chest. for ntv.de he writes down the most exciting and funniest stories on Mondays and Saturdays. More information about Ben Redelings, his current dates and his book with the best columns (“Between Puff and Barcelona”) can be found on his page www.scudetto.de.
That went well as long as Eike Immel had no money. But when he played his first Bundesliga game for BVB against Bayern at the age of 17, a new era began. Lothar Matthäus knows what it’s like when fame suddenly comes much too early: “You come from the village. You suddenly earn a lot of money. You’re suddenly in a completely different world. You’re celebrated. Questions come up approaching you, you can’t even assess them yet. You buy a Rolex, an expensive car, take everything with you, play cards and spend what you have. Then the newspapers report it. That’s difficult. But you also have to know what a kilo of apples costs or a buttered pretzel.”
Maybe Eike Immel even knew what life costs back then – but basically he didn’t care. His new self had other priorities (“I wanted to be part of it”) and so he spoke two revealing sentences to his advisor: “I had said to him carelessly that he can do whatever he wants with my money. It just had to be secured at all times stay that I have 20,000 marks in my pocket and can drive a Porsche Turbo.”
The life of a pop star
Life off the field is then the stuff of an entertaining feature film. Shady characters, beautiful women, accidents with expensive cars. Eike Immel lived the life of a pop star – and left nothing out. Of course, like so many football professionals at the time, he gambled on real estate and always spent more than he earned. The book says that a driver from the bank “brought 30,000 marks on match days so that Eike could pay the bills.” A downward spiral developed that the goalkeeper was no longer able to control early on, as he himself reports: “No one in our house knew how to handle money and I noticed that from the start. I then made a lot of mistakes in Dortmund, also because there was no connection to my parents’ home. My father asked me what I would do with the money, he wanted to take care of it. But I thought that if he takes care of it, everything will be gone even more.”
Lothar Huber, his captain at Borussia, saw what happened to Eike Immel – the gifted young goalkeeper from the village – in the Ruhr area city with a traditional club: “But the big problem was of course that he was alone at such a young age. He came at some point also in bad company. He started to gamble, not only with us, his colleagues from the team.” These are the days when Eike Immel’s life got out of hand. And maybe it was inevitable, as Immel himself says: “I did a lot wrong in Dortmund, also because there was no connection to my parents.”
A huge mistake by Fenerbahce
The book is an emotional ride through a wild, eventful life. It is a relentless processing of many transgressions. An example of this is a story from Istanbul days. Immel was the goalkeeping coach at Fenerbahce under Christoph Daum – and in his financial distress he made an unforgivable faux pas. At that time, two keepers competed for the place in the goal. One of them was Rüştü Reçber: “I also owed Rüştü because he had given me money. I was in trouble and borrowed $27,000 from him. That sucked and it was also a burden because I have to remain neutral when Goalkeeper coach. The story came out, of course it caused a lot of trouble. I should never have taken the money. I knew that the bomb would explode at some point.” Christoph Daum, even if he doesn’t want to talk explicitly about this matter today, settled Immel’s debts at the time – and then released him, deeply disappointed.
The book shows a person who still harbors a devilish longing for recognition. A longing that is still not satisfied. And according to Immel, there is always the same reason for this: “Things are being claimed that are simply not true, and then I always notice that I simply lack respect. If I had money and I could do a little here and there put a few bills on the table, then everyone would be completely different to me. It’s not enough to be the national player, a German champion, one of the best goalkeepers. It’s always about money and if you don’t have any, then you don’t get any respect . Then you are a nobody.” But despite all the lamentation, Immel is to be credited for not holding anyone else accountable for his own situation: “If I take stock today and see how things are with me, then in the end it’s all my own fault .”
And so the author of his biography, which is well worth reading, Gregor Schnittker, aptly summarizes the life of Eike Immel in two sentences: “At some point, despite his footballing genius, Eike’s luck slips through his fingers. He couldn’t hold on to it and the structure of the game, the planning of his life initiate meaningfully.” But one must also say that if he had been able to do that, this book would probably never have come about.