The drama of Wattenscheid
Where football doesn’t care about FIFA and Flick
By Tobias Nordmann, Wattenscheid
11/26/2022, 7:17 p.m
In Qatar, the German national soccer team is fighting against the premature knockout at the World Cup and is missing a little bit of support from home. There, the interest in the tournament is not that great, unlike the love of the game.
For teams like that of Preußen Münster, the phrase “in the style of a top team” was invented. On this Saturday afternoon, at almost exactly four o’clock, Simon Scherder silenced the Lohrheide Stadium in Wattenscheid, this place that is so wonderfully reminiscent of the old days of football, when the big stars still wore mustaches and with them Mullet mats gleamed. In this place in the shadow of the Holland colliery, where the great FC Bayern with Jürgen Kohler, Stefan Effenberg, Olaf Thon and Brian Laudrup had once been disenchanted with Souleymane Sané, Ali Ibrahim and Thorsten Fink. Football nostalgics still breathe the stench of that glorious time in the stands.
The reality in “good old Watsche” looks different. Sad, if not quite so sad as it was a few weeks ago. The SGW 09 team had scored ten points from the last five games. The relegated team, which had already been believed to be safe, had successfully transformed into a team that believes in itself and staying up in the Regionalliga West. And by a few seconds, the Wattenscheider missed the small big miracle of the Lohrheide on this Saturday afternoon. A football game ended 4:5, which, from waiting at the ticket booth to selling last-minute bratwurst for one euro, was the maximum alternative to what is currently happening in Qatar, to the strangely dazzling World Cup.
Two European champions, two worlds
From national coach Hansi Flick, who has to solve the most complicated personal puzzle of his coaching career. You don’t hear anything about the concerns of the national team in Lohrheide. Nobody talks about the crazy FIFA boss Gianni Infantino, about “One Love” or Ronaldo’s show. And the crashing end of a world career, Lionel Messi’s imminent World Cup knockout, is not an issue either. There is a delicate connection to Doha. Dennis Grote runs in Wattenscheid. A forgotten player from the great 2009 generation that became European Under-21 champions and from whom so many became world champions five years later. Manuel Neuer, for example, is the last representative of the generation at the highest national team level. On Sunday evening he is fighting one of the biggest disappointments in German football history. Dennis Grote may or may not be watching him. The world of the 36-year-old is different. It can be experienced and breathed in Lohrheide, in Wattenscheid. On the last few meters of his career, Grote dreams of promotion with his youth club, for which he will later continue to work.
The starting position was clear: Prussia are the towering favorites in this game in the league. In a dramatic long-distance duel, the Munsters missed promotion last season and let the pot giants Rot-Weiss Essen rise. There shouldn’t be any deja-vu and so the team, in which Andrew Wooten and Marc Lorenz are other players with formerly higher orders under contract, is plowing through the league and after 18 games is now eight points ahead of the pursuers Mönchengladbach II and Alemannia Aachen. The Wuppertaler SV can still catch up and shorten to seven points – at least.
Lewandowski hits history, so what?
But the Prussians almost stumbled, like they did two weeks ago when they lost 1-0 to WSV. But there was still Simon Scherder and the 96th minute. The joker had stung. Right in the heart of the hosts. And no one who wasn’t in that stadium could feel what that goal meant. For the people who don’t seem to care about Qatar as much as one person can care about Qatar. Only for a very small moment does the world championship find access to Lohrheide. At twenty to five someone yells: Robert Lewandowski has scored. It’s a historic goal, his first in a world tournament. Two, three, maybe four people turn around. The rest rages and whips – or trembles. Umut Yildiz (78th) brought SGW back into this game. After a phenomenal one-two, the 22-year-old is free in front of the goal, scores – the stadium trembles. Only 3:4. Wattenscheid was 1:4 behind at the break.
Wild birds in the back, careless in the front, sometimes too selfish, inattentive. This is how the hosts spent the first 45 minutes. For example, Kim Sané, Souleymane’s son, Leroy’s older brother, who is fighting the football meltdown alongside Neuer on Sunday. After ten minutes he failed with a shot at the short corner. One minute it’s 0:1, three minutes later it’s 0:2. The fans in the stands get angry. From the old hooligan to the grandmother, everyone was stunned. Everyone finds another culprit, Tim Thomas Brdaric is named, the son of cult striker Thomas Brdaric, eight-time national team player. Things take their course. The favorite is sovereign. Nobody knows how wild this game is going to get. 40 minutes: penalty for Munster, 0:3. 43 minutes: Penalty for Wattenscheid, 1:3. The “village” is raging. 44 minutes, 1: 4. The “village” is silent.
Christmas Market? Bermuda Triangle? Movie night?
People who came just before kick-off and got hold of tokens first and then beer hardly saw anything until the 25th minute. That’s how big the crowd was. Almost 2800 fans came, many spontaneously and shortly before. The head of security gave the visitors clear instructions: women on the left, men on the right, then it goes faster. And none of them had gone to recess. This is also a difference to Qatar, where a mass escape had started at halftime in the opening game. The belief that something else could work? Unavailable. Doesn’t matter. The topics that are moving people now: Late Christmas market? Bermuda Triangle (legendary pub mile in Bochum)? Movie night? Or summer party? A poster at the beer stand points this out, but it was already in August, so someone probably just forgot to pick up. One laughs. Oh well.
Kick-off for the second 45 minutes. The guys with the cowls and the black and white cult logo are back in the block. There is no giving up here. Not in Wattenscheid. Not at Lohrheide, which once had a taste of big football, was insolvent and disappeared deep into nowhere. Where criminals were in power or (too) wild visionaries. 48 minutes: Penalty for the SGW09. Cult striker Dennis “Bulle” Lerche starts and scores. Is something still possible? The Wattenscheiders run for their luck in a frenzy, Münster shakes – and Omma roars with every cross: now it’s in.
And Grandma is right
It takes up to the 78th minute for Omma to be celebrated as an oracle. The hosts have been outnumbered for twelve minutes, the “bull” has been thrown off the field and is taking on the Prussian block, 300, maybe 400 fans have come along and think the certain victory is in danger. In the 85th post, the ball hits the SGW post, then a defender tackles it off the line. The “village” is raging. The black and white charge, the green and white writhe on the ground. Not only Grandma senses Zeitspiel. The “village” is raging. Then the 92nd minute, Brdaric, goal, madhouse. If you want to experience honest love for football, you will find it here and now. It’s that love, that support that the DFB players in Qatar miss.
Grandma doesn’t know what to do with her feelings. So she high-fives everything and everyone that is within reach. Wattenscheid was rewarded for a self-sacrificing fight. 1:4 became 4:4, with ten men against the leader of the table. What a mentality. Everyone takes this point with them. They already hold it firmly in their hands, then the 96th minute, then Scherder, then Tor, then the Prussian fans storm the field. “Shit” shouts the one who also announced Lewandowski’s goal. Now many are turning. yeah shit Nothing else matters here and now. But they don’t go, they celebrate their heroes with the applause they deserve. Next week Stadion am Zoo in Wuppertal, then another home game against RW Ahlen. The World Cup then runs for nine more days, does anyone care? The bratwurst is offered at quarter past five for one euro, you had overreached yourself at the grill. The fan likes to grab it. Then Christmas market. Or Bermuda Triangle.