The lovable football buffoon

It’s also a bit hard when klaus stieringer lists the highlights of the bamberger literaturfest for the funeral: franz muntefering, dunja hayali, raul krauthausen, luisa neubauer, and, ah, dirk nowitzki. There are no literary figures in the true sense of the word, just celebrities. And so it is fitting that the most entertaining event that a resourceful culture reporter can pick out is the one with mario basler. And read from a book there is not a line.

Basler, whom one likes to call "type or "original has long since left the status of ex-fubballer or expert behind him, no longer fits into any role like that of coach, but is finally just himself, the popular mario, who really unpacks for once. Why literature festival? Because the second basler biography has already been published these days.

The author, of course, is not basler himself, but the sports journalist alex raack, who was not present at the literature festival on this thursday evening.

Rupel-like charm

Basler sits on the stage with radio-bamberg host jorg wagner, who occasionally blurts out a few words in the book. It’s an easy job for the man of the evening, the 51-year-old has a story from his life for every keyword.

And the expected gags anyway, ad 1: "der schmidt hat uberall smoked, warum darf ich des ned?" Ad 2: "can we make the audience brighter? I’m looking for a woman." The champion, cup winner, king of goal scorers, bar owner in mallorca and third-place finisher on celeb big brother 2016 is twice divorced and schooled in ruffian charm: "hubsches ding."

It’s no surprise that there are mainly men there anyway, men who used to be his fans, especially when basler kicked for bavaria, and who now long for what he stands for today: football romance, a touch of the lower classes even among the professionals, who seem to smoke, drink and bird as much as those who emulated them in tutschengereuth and breitengubbach sunday after sunday.

"Do you understand the?"

Only once did bremen coach otto rehhagel catch him with a lady in the room. "The next day we played against bochum. I scored three goals." Says it and grins. And fortunately there is always a certain self-irony shining through, without which he would not be a sympathizer, but a disgust.

The fact that fans today hardly have any access to the players annoys him. "This has nothing more to do with fubball." He has to live with the fact that the public bumps into him at every opportunity. And the audience with the fact that he likes to backpedal, doesn’t like to suck up: "do you understand the?", asks basler wagner after an arguably french interjection. "Is there any normal german here??"

So almost a little stammtischatmosphare arises, the imaginary wall, which was never there, falls, the distance is lifted. And jorg wagner can simply ask directly and without further ado: klinsmann? "A selfish asshole, a complete disaster, I don’t like it."

Kahn? "Then as now: go down to the cellar for a laugh. He was the first to go to bed." That’s how it is, the basler doesn’t mince his words, he doesn’t give a damn.

At that time, that means of course the trauma that must not be missing when recapitulating this particular career: champions league final 1999 against manchester united. Basler drinks alone in the hotel bar until three in the morning. Coach hitzfeld told him at night that he could not field him like that. "In the evening i was on the list after all. I thought: wow. But I was outstanding, best man."

Basler actually scores with a direct free kick and is substituted before the two goals are scored in stoppage time.

And now it gets interesting, because basler actually resists much of what goes along with the romanticism he fires up: he despises sentimentality. He skipped the award ceremony and instead smoked half a pack of cigarettes. Afterwards he celebrated with markus babbel as if bayern had won the title. "We broke three tables while dancing. I was full as a handbrake."

Against romance

He could never understand why his colleagues had to carry such a defeat around with them for three or four weeks. It sounds funny, but he’s serious: "I don’t give a damn, the game was over, finished. When I see something like hanau: such things must affect us, but not such a dirty soccer game."

Mario basler was a professional soccer player for almost 20 years. Always one to polarize. Some gothic him, others can not stand him, the goalkeepers feared his right fub, the coaches despaired. His trophies, jerseys and memories – he threw them all away and gave them away, he says, opening a small window to where the real mario basler lives, for whom it’s not so easy after all.

Whether all of this is true, the escapades, the danced tables, is not decisive. Mario basler, who now also performs as a comedian, has found himself and thus become the perfect artistic figure: the last true type, the only original, the lovable fubballproll. Whether he ends up being remembered for his freistobe or his speeches – he won’t care.