Werner Gegenbauer, Andreas Fritzenkötter, Lars Windhorst – the names of the protagonists in the power struggle for Hertha BSC blur the lines between reality and fiction. One can easily imagine characters with this name in one of Jörg Fauser’s observations. “I was 38 and broke,” it says in “Schlangenmaul”, in which the salvage expert Heinz Harder capitulates to the dirt of everyday life on a wild ride through the reality of the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1980s in the end in Berlin-Lübars.
Felix Magath is 68 and not broke, but fate has washed him into this one place, where the reality of the present condenses into a single story. In the Berlin Olympic Stadium, old football is involved in a battle with the investor reality of modern times. The old, unloved stadium with the running track in the west end should go, but the capital felt is doing everything to prevent it. In terms of sport, the club has only known one way for years: down!
To make matters worse, the club around President Werner Gegenbauer has to deal with the freelance investor Lars Windhorst, whose spokesman Andreas Fritzenkötter is orchestrating the attacks against the current management of the club in the background. Windhorst himself sees his investment of 375 million euros at risk. The legendary Windhorst millions have vanished into thin air amid the pandemic.
The former Kohl child prodigy from East Westphalia holds angry speeches on “Bild TV” and goes into close combat with the club’s fan clubs on Twitter and is supported by an entire army of friendly users. And sometimes his collar bursts, then he lashes out in a way that is reminiscent of a former president of a world power. In these moments, “Felix Magath” also answers him.
“Oink, oink, oink,” writes this “Magath” to the cheers of thousands Twitter. The social network is where everything blurs. What is real and what is made up? After intensive research, ntv.de came across the person who gives Felix Magath a digital face. A nostalgic conversation about football in the 2000s and 2020s develops. “It’s still 2009,” says the man who is Felix Magath on the Internet.
ntv.de: Hello, Mr. Magath! Nice that you took the time for us. How are you?
“Felix Magath”: I’m currently busy with Hertha a lot, so I’ve been feeling better.
Let’s clear up a myth right away. Aren’t you the real Felix Magath, Mr. Magath?
I’m human first, names are just letters. A year ago, I was briefly banned from Twitter for allegedly calling Fabrizio Romanos [ein Transferexperte, der es bis zu einem Porträt in der “New York Times” gebracht hat, Anm. d. Red] stole identity. Since then I don’t care.
How did you perceive Magath’s commitment? So how did you come up with this crazy idea?
Like probably many others, I was very surprised, actually I was expecting Markus Anfang. When Magath was announced, I, to quote Twitter user contract amateur Belamigovic, “completely gave a shit”. But I was also happy and still find the path very exciting. Magath used to be in the Bundesliga all the time and suddenly he’s back. What can he bring to the league after a ten-year absence? What is his view of modern football? How modern is he himself? What role does Mark Fotheringham play? These are all extremely interesting questions that often go completely unnoticed alongside Magath’s image as a “grinder”. To be honest, I’m partly to blame, of course, but that also gave rise to the idea of having Magath comment on everything possible on Twitter. And the truth is that I just spend too much time on my cell phone.
Her follower numbers have exploded. Do you have numbers for us?
A week and a half ago it was just under 2,000, now it’s 25,000. The German is easy to inspire. But I don’t like talking about followers, for me they are primarily customers who will soon be asked to checkout.
Felix Magath is a tough dog with you. One who already has his future behind him. But you still breathe a certain charm into your Magath. Was that planned?
None of this was planned, I feel the same way as Fredi Bobic. It’s just like that, in the world of Twitter-Magath it’s 2009 and Grafite has just brought the Bavarian back four of Philipp Lahm, Breno, Andreas Ottl and Christian Lell down to earth and the Volkswagen Arena. Michael Rensing is still watching the ball. Magath looks at today’s football from this perspective. Today it’s more and more the broken stories that still make us feel something about the Bundesliga. Those from HSV, who were initially ineligible and now ineligible, from Schalke and the angry fans in the Arena Ring and now from the old lady and the old acquaintance who last coached Shandong Taishan FC. Hertha just delivers at the moment.
They play a lot with the longing for the old football, translating old anecdotes anchored in the collective memory into modern times. Your readers will love it. Are you a football romantic Mr. “Magath”?
I’m unromantic enough to be open about the Magath-Windhorst-Selke combination and to say: That’s football, too.
If Magath is the protagonist, we have to imagine Lars Windhorst as the antagonist. You always comment so indignantly there. Don’t like the investor?
I have to speak, feel and smell investors to be able to say that. As for Windhorst, Twitter user @jayjaysen04 put it in a nutshell last November: “375 million poured into the club, Tayfun Korkut is on the touchline and Peter Pekarík is defending on the right.” So the businessman Windhorst knows what he’s doing. And basically I think it’s sympathetic when an investor, after a home win that is also very important emotionally, which can mean the way out of the crisis, turns to “Bild TV” and publicly brings unrest to the club. Privately, Lars Windhorst is my bro, I don’t let anything get to him. I drank with him once in Bad Oeynhausen in East Westphalia, good man.
They move skilfully on the border between reality and fiction. Are there users who you think are the real Magath and has he already contacted you?
Yes, some seem to think I’m the real Magath. But there are also people who think Fredi Bobic is a brilliant sports director. The right Magath hasn’t contacted me yet, but I carry my lactate values with me on a USB stick at all times. Feel free to get in touch, Mr. Magath, I don’t do it much worse than Peter Pekarík!
Finally: Do you wish Felix Magath to stay up in the league?
Relegation is 90 percent a matter of the mind. I myself stick with VfL Bochum and I just want to be entertained in the coming weeks. If Hertha remain top-notch, one thing should be clear to them: They only loaned this league from Zvjezdan Misimović anyway.
Mr. “Felix Magath”, thank you for this interview.
Stephan Uersfeld spoke to “Felix Magath”.