By: Ed Swain
I don’t normally have much to say about the Bundesliga unless there’s a Canadian involved, but I saw something this past weekend that wouldn’t go away. Just ten games left in the season, mighty Bayern Munich are sitting in fifth place in the top flight. Bayern have missed an appearance in the Champions League just once in the last eleven years. But on Saturday, the money and prestige that goes with those wonderful mid-week matches that draw world-wide audiences were in jeopardy. They were playing away, against a club in form, two points and one place ahead them in them in the standings.
And what team was that? Hannover 96.
Hannover 96. Not the most glorious name in German football and I’d be surprised if many North American fans would be able to name more than one or two players who have ever appeared on their roster. But I followed them for a time; very intently, in fact, starting when Julian de Guzman made his move there over the summer of 2002.
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Back then, Hannover was a club with no modern pedigree. They were a top flight team from the inception of the Bundesliga through to the mid-70's, but fell off the radar for most of the following twenty years. It took them a while, but at the end of the 90’s, they had finally emerged as a Bundesliga 2 team with ambitions for promotion. Julian joined them as they began their first Bundesliga 1 season in a generation.
Julian was brought in as a promising young player. He had caught the eye of a Spaniard who’d moved onto Hannover after a stint with FC Saarbruecken. It was in Saarbruecken where - championed by his amateur team coach, Dieter Ferner - Julian resurrected his professional career after being jettisoned by Olympique Marseille.
But it was in Hannover that Julian learned his trade, apprenticing, if you will, under the likes of Albanian Altin Lala - not a big name, but a consummate pro. And it was with Hannover where Julian transformed himself from an attacking player to a top-level defensive midfielder. He then brought that game to Deportivo La Coruna in Spain's La Liga, becoming the first Canadian to play in that league.
The team did also generate some level of North American interest, at least south of the border. There was a storyline worthy of a movie script with Clint Mathis moving over there for the 2004 season. Mathis, dubbed ‘Cletus’ by US fans, was initially a big hit
Another North American has been with the squad his entire professional career. Stephen Cherundolo left the University of Portland after his sophomore year and joined the club. I am sure you could wallpaper your room with printouts on his achievements from the BigSoccer.com Yanks Abroad forum, but you’d have to say that Hannover 96 hasn’t had a truckload of stars over the past decade.
Yet the team managed to survive in the very competitive Bundesliga 1, although they never managed to reach the top half of the table.
One man did emerge from that team as a top player in the league: Goalkeeper Robert Enke. Enke joined Hannover after a tumultuous career as a young player. After one season as a pro with a club in East Germany, he jumped to Borussia Moenchengladbach where he made attracted attention. A stint in Portugal with Benfica, and suddenly the young keeper was with FC Barcelona. He made but one appearance for the Catalan giants over two years with brief loan spells abroad. He returned to Germany over the transfer season of 2004, to Hannover. And with Hannover, he was a stalwart. And over the years, with Oliver Kahn retired, and then Jens Lehmann stepping down in 2008, he had a real shot at establishing himself as Germany’s number one goalkeeper.
But Enke had some personal issues. He had been suffering from depression for some time. His depression was deeply compounded by the death of his young daughter Lara in 2006. And on 10 November 2009, reportedly after visiting her grave, Enke jumped in front of an express train, leaving behind his wife and an infant daughter the couple had just adopted.
Understandably, the club was shattered narrowly avoided relegation last season. But this season has been eerie. A traditional mid-table club, they are sitting in fourth place getting down the stretch with only two losses over the 24 games to date coming into the match with Bayern.
The fans were loving it, displaying a banner for the visitors that read, ‘No Title, No Cup, No Hope’. And their club delivered in kind, with two goals in the first half against a Bayern side that boasts arguably the most creative French player in the world in Franck Ribery, Dutch star Arjen Robben and some of the core of the new German national team with Philipp Lahm and Thomas Mueller. Bayern does come back with with one, but Hannover stun the giants with a third goal. The home supporters could feel it, their famous opponents were on the ropes. And with 20 minutes left, the Munich side are left in complete shambles as Mueller takes a red card. On the final whistle Hannover stands victorious, now third place in the table.
After years where the only goal was ‘Klassnerhalter’, literally ‘holding your class’ (i.e., staying up in the Bundesliga 1), Hannover 96 have a chance to be in the Champions League next season. A twelfth man is with them this season.
Ed Swain is a long time Voyageur who has had his writings published in Inside Soccer Magazine. He coaches youth soccer in Alberta, and got his start following German football when he who cannot be named went over to Bayern Munich as a youth player. Ed keeps fellow Canadian fans in the loop through his "Canucks in Germany" updates on the Voyageurs forum.