Manuel Riemann scandal
How VfL Bochum lost control of their keeper
By Ben Redelings
May 21, 2024, 8:27 p.m
On Monday the dispute between Manuel Riemann and his VfL Bochum escalated. The club will play the Bundesliga relegation games without its regular goalkeeper. The news is causing a stir among fans – and the rumor mill can’t calm minds.
Yesterday at noon, a rumor spread quickly among the fans of VfL Bochum that this time it wasn’t just verbal cross-talk from long-time regular goalkeeper Manuel Riemann towards his teammates. Of course, the club’s suspicions were not officially confirmed. Quite the opposite. The official press release from VfL Bochum read more like a message from an allotment garden association that could not agree with a member on whether or not rabbit keeping should be allowed in the future (“irreconcilable differences of opinion”, according to the wording of VfL) . In other words: The club’s communication from Castroper Strasse was largely meaningless in terms of content, extremely vague and, above all, confusingly harmless given the size and scope of the decision.
But the fact that the relegation participant was obviously not a trivial matter behind closed doors was evident from the goalkeeper’s immediate reaction. After speaking to various club representatives, Manuel Riemann immediately cleared his locker in the locker room. Probably for the last time. Because it is very likely that the impulsive, long-time keeper of VfL Bochum will never move his belongings there again. The differences seem to be too great, which have now erupted in an unprecedented act just a few days before the two decisive games against Fortuna Düsseldorf in a completely crazy and messed up season for VfL.
The club has thus created a situation that ultimately leaves only two options. Either the temporary waiver of Manuel Riemann (“VfL makes it clear that this is not a suspension or punishment”) will free up new forces within the club and the team, or the club will fail miserably with its strategy of releasing its first goalkeeper from the squad for the last two games of the season. Whatever the outcome of the situation, it fits so strikingly with a season that can already be counted as one of the biggest rollercoaster rides in the club’s history. And the season is far from over, especially in the Riemann case, as the club itself announced in its press release: “VfL and Manuel Riemann will work through this situation after the end of the season.” But what exactly happened?
Butscher praised Riemann
For some time now, VfL Bochum’s regular goalkeeper has attracted attention with his violent verbal attacks on the pitch – which not only neutral observers, but also the team itself obviously found to be unhelpful because they had a negative connotation. And the club has repeatedly tried to catch Riemann in different ways on this point. Most recently, coach Heiko Butscher even publicly addressed his extremely unconventional approach to Riemann’s pronounced need to communicate when he said: “We use all channels to be good and to be able to react to certain situations. We also spoke to Manuel Riemann about this and found a channel for exchange. This is a way of using all resources. We have coaches in the stands and with Manuel Riemann we have a goalkeeper on the pitch who can read a game very well. We use that to our advantage.” But this plan has obviously failed too.
The goalkeeper’s outbursts – in whatever form – around the 34th matchday and the final defeat of VfL Bochum in Bremen showed that an important thing that Butscher saw as central to working together was apparently no longer working had: “After the game, and that’s very important, we can always look each other in the eye. There is complete respect for each other.”
But as simple as the goalkeeper’s removal from the squad may seem in principle, it essentially reveals a frightening look into the inner workings of the VfL Bochum team. Coach Butscher also said a day ago: “Manuel Riemann wants to win games. He has that in common with us, the coaching team. And we try to transfer this will to win to the team.” And that is exactly where the club’s current problem lies. Because in a team that has been progressively dissolving for weeks, Riemann was without question someone who wanted to protect the club and the team from worse things.
Total resignation from Riemann
Everything that may have happened around the game in Bremen was obviously an expression of total resignation on Riemann’s part. He simply no longer saw a team in front of him that unconditionally wanted to do everything for the club and its fans. And that completely threw the goalkeeper, who was often consumed by ambition, completely off track emotionally. Possibly even so strong that he allowed himself to be carried away into actions that went far beyond the acceptable.
At VfL Bochum they will now try everything in their power to convert the negative events of the last few days into positive energies – and, above all, to finally regain control of what is happening. It will be interesting to see whether and how this succeeds. The club’s long-suffering fans will definitely be behind their team and pushing them forward on Thursday evening at 8.30 p.m. One can only hope that the eleven players on the pitch are aware of the special situation. Because the worst thing for the club and its fans would be if Manuel Riemann ends up being right with his “different opinions”.