Curious award for Borowka: The biggest "kick in the Bundesliga"

Thorsten "Kasalla" Legat is finally stepping onto the big football stage - it's no wonder for his mother.

Curious award for Borowka: The biggest "kick in the Bundesliga"

Thorsten "Kasalla" Legat is finally stepping onto the big football stage - it's no wonder for his mother. In Frankfurt, HSV keeper Uli Stein punches Bayern striker Wegmann and in Bremen the tough defender Borowka receives a unique award!

VfL Bochum has a new youth hope: Thorsten Legat. Even as a child, he was a football fanatic, as his mother once said: "If a tin can rattled on our street at eight in the morning, everyone knew: the legatee is on his way!" Thorsten's then girlfriend Nicol was also blown away by the well-built VfL professional: "From the day she saw me play in Werne, she was after me." And Thorsten knew even then that he would be forever addicted to the round leather: "Without football, the world would collapse for me." People will still talk about Thorsten Legat in the years to come - just like his later teammate at SV Werder Bremen: Uli Borowka.

In the 1987/88 season, the tough defender was awarded a prize by the specialist magazine "Kicker", which was only awarded once. An unbelievable 216 professionals chose Uli Borowka as the biggest kicker in the Bundesliga. An award that quickly fell into disrepute - but the Bremen native took it with humor at the time. He just found it a pity that he couldn't hold anything presentable in his hands: "There are always pins and trophies. Now I insist on an iron shoe!" A quote from that time shows that Borowka knew pretty well what style of play he was playing: "My talisman is a tie pin with a cleaver. A gift from my wife, who thinks it would suit my appearance on the football field."

Schalke's Olaf Thon still remembers the merciless defender Borowka. In his very first Bundesliga game on the Bökelberg, the tough defender was Thon's opponent. Borowka greeted the nervous youngster with the words: "I'll break both of your legs!" And with that, everything important was said. Only one player could compete with Borowka, as he likes to tell himself: "In the first minute of the game in Leverkusen, Ulf Kirsten knocked me over the gang with karacho. I think, what's going on now and say to Ulf: 'Sag are you crazy? I haven't done anything yet?!' Then Ulf looks at me with a smile and says: 'That's for the last time, Uli!'"

The 1987/88 season also started spectacularly. In the Supercup between Bayern Munich and Hamburger SV, keeper Uli Stein hit Bayern's double goal scorer, Jürgen Wegmann, with a punch. He rightly saw the red card and was immediately dismissed by Hamburger SV. The league was shocked. Uli Stein's failures increased. In a letter to the editor, a football fan quoted tennis star Boris Becker as saying. He once said about John McEnroe: "I appreciate him as an athlete, I feel sorry for him as a person." Replace McEnroe with stone. But for the former national goalkeeper, the Bundesliga trip was not over after this scandal. In Frankfurt, things were to get busy again for Stein.

Otherwise it was the season of SV Werder Bremen - mainly because the success came so unexpectedly. Actually, the Weser had prepared itself for a year of transition. The new season started without Völler and Pezzey, and the newspapers headlined: "'Rehhagel's pensioners' band' becomes 'Rehhagel's rascals'." The coach himself said: "I'm building the Werder team of the 1990s." And this conversion was quick. In Karl-Heinz Riedle, they got an excellent replacement for Rudi Völler from relegated Blau-Weiss 90 Berlin, and in their own ranks Gunnar Sauer and Rune Bratseth matured into confident defensive strategists.

In addition, there was the man who had come from Mönchengladbach with the special award: Uli Borowka. Bremen only conceded 22 goals in the entire season. Also thanks to the great team spirit, which coach Otto Rehhagel sang almost poetically, it should work out in the end with the German championship: "For us it's the cohesion that makes us so strong. Stars are of no use to me, I need eleven people. At one Violin virtuosos can do that. But a team is like a choir. When one has a lump in their throat, the notes come out crooked."

And then a new era in German professional football began with Andreas Möller. Players have been specially trained for the media since this season. At the end of November, Möller received a fax from his lawyer with the title: "Suggestions for answers to the public"! They were typical standard phrases that you should hear again and again and everywhere from now on: "I've been playing for Eintracht Frankfurt since I was... I'm Frankfurter and Eintracht player. I feel very close to Eintracht Frankfurt and its supporters."

On the subject of money: "What is decisive for me is the sporting care provided by my club. Money is irrelevant to me." And when asked about a possible change, e.g. B. to Bayern Munich, should Möller reply: "I'm not negotiating with Bayern Munich. I want to stay in Frankfurt." What the reality of the young star Möller actually looked like was shown in his later career. Years later, his fellow player Axel Kruse described this paper as a "lying primer".