FC Bayern in the DFB-Cup final: Quiet farewell for Boateng

This Saturday is back Jérôme Boateng. There, where he as a Boy, started on the Berlin football pitches. As a striker, a role model: Thierry Henry. A real scorer, he is not to become but. There are Yes a Central defender, which are also feared in front of the opposing goal, like Sergio Ramos, he saw in his early years at Bayern as a model. Like Ramos Boateng world champion and Champions-League-winner.

Christian Eichler

sports correspondent in Munich.

But scoring chances remained the Only thing he could do, and as an interior defender. The iron-hard Spaniard shot for Real Madrid and the national team of 115 goals – the gentle German for Bayern and the national team of 15. His last hit is two and a half years. So Boateng is in the Hundred-goals-Bayern in the large class of 2020 a Rarity: the only field player, of which there is no danger of scoring.

This Cup is the final against Bayer Leverkusen (20: 00 in the F. A. Z.-liveticker of the German DFB Cup, the German ARD and Sky) for an encore. As he accompanied a year ago, the Cup victory in Berlin, with a petrified expression on the bench, did not want to join in the celebration, from President Uli Hoeness, with the label "foreign body" and the recommendation of a club change considered, seemed to be since the summer of 2017 in almost every transfer period, discussed the departure of Boateng were really inevitable. But in the end, Paris St-Germain and Bayern could not agree. Boateng remained so, was the Notstopfen, flew to Frankfurt, from space, the release of a 1:5-disgrace, the coach Niko Kovac, the Job cost and all of that changed and was one of the big winners of the season.

Boateng is a coach not a simple case, he wants to be important and acts offended when you give him this feeling. As is the case with Ancelotti, then at Kovac. Its successor Hansi Flick got it right. Boateng looks back and in the middle of the Team. He feels "the confidence of the Coach," he says, and have "re really fun on football". In the winter break, he worked iron, took several kilograms, swears by a gluten-free diet and Yoga.