A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke

by Reng, Ronald

  I’m a bit disappointed by the training staff. Daum should put a lot more stress on discipline. I barely have any contact with the team.

  In that mood, he drove to the stadium.

  It was forty kilometres back to the city centre; another traffic jam on the bridge. Fenerbahçe’s stadium wasn’t far from the Topkapi Palace, home to the Sultans, the rulers of the Ottoman Empire. The terraces were four yellow and blue walls made up of fifty-two thousand fanatics, their opponents, Istanbulspor, not worth bothering with.

  Robert wore a gleaming dark-blue jersey with a hint of a V-neck and a pair of shorts almost as wide as a boxer’s. He looked good in his new gear, strong yet agile. His face was only seen in photographs later on.

  In Barcelona, Teresa escaped with Dickens. She rode into the forest and let the horse gallop. The speed forced her to concentrate on what she was doing and not think that a football match was happening right now in Istanbul.

  Istanbulspor were on the brink of bankruptcy. At the end of the season the team would rescue itself from relegation with a single point’s advantage. Fener tried to dominate the game, but Istanbulspor had come to defend – the prerogative of the small team. Fener couldn’t get through. They started to get nervous. Then, only eighteen minutes into the game, a long pass was hit from Istanbulspor’s half. Robert ran out but realised in a tenth of a second that he would never get to the ball. Istanbulspor’s only striker, the Israeli Pini Balili – who had become a Turkish citizen called Atakan Balili – already had it, Fener’s defenders far behind him. From nearly thirty yards out he lobbed it over Robert’s head with gusto. The keeper, stuck on the eighteen-yard line, ran desperately back, chasing the shot, sensing that he would just be fetching it out of the net.

  On the terraces, Eike Immel was convinced ‘there was nothing he could do about that goal. It was preceded by an incredibly stupid misplaced pass from Selçuk, and the counterattack so quickly that Robert didn’t have time to correct his position.’ Robert, on the other hand, shouted loudly at himself when he booted the ball away towards the centre circle. His foot got caught in some toilet paper that fans had thrown into his area. He thought someone had switched him into slow-motion. In his perception, everything seemed to be moving with extraordinary slowness. Later he remarked to Jörg, ‘Everything was wrapped in fog.’

  In the second half, the ball came to him after a back-pass. Robert showed no sign of doing anything with it. A murmur in the terraces swelled to a rumble. Immel felt his heart beating faster. Kick the ball away, man! he thought. The Istanbulspor players, who hadn’t bothered to trouble the goalkeeper since the goal, hesitated; then the first of them, Balili, began to run at him. And still Robert didn’t move. As if he didn’t know what to do with the ball; as if he had forgotten how to execute a simple pass. Get rid of the thing, quickly! Immel wanted to shout.

  Too late.

  Balili swiped the ball away from Robert. There was confusion in Fener’s box. Fifty-two thousand people were shouting, shrieking wildly, stunned by the chaos on the pitch. Finally a defender saw off the threat.

  Immel needed time to recover from the shock. ‘Robert had a complete brainstorm,’ he said.

  After fifty-seven minutes the score was 3–0 to Istanbulspor. Coins, lighters and bottles flew around Robert’s ears. He knew his own fans were standing behind his goal.

  When Teresa got back home she knew she could find the result on Teletext but came up with any excuse not to turn on the TV. She would shower first.

  A quarter of an hour later, her phone rang.

  ‘Hello, it’s Gunnar.’

  As children, Robert’s friends had found it exciting that Robert had a brother who was six years older. His big brother could tell them something about music and girls. Gunnar had become a father at the age of twenty-one. Ever since Robert had become a travelling professional sportsman they’d only seen each other for a few days in the holidays, and spoken occasionally on the phone.

  ‘Yes, Gunnar?’ said Teresa.

  ‘I just wanted to call.’

  ‘Gunnar, if you know anything, then please tell me.’

  ‘Yes. Three-nil.’

  ‘Won or lost?’

  ‘Lost.’

  Teresa broke down on the stairs.

  She tapped in his phone number again and again. ‘It was dark outside by now,’ remembers Jörg, who was trying as well. Finally Robert phoned Teresa back. He was on that bridge again, in the traffic jam.

  He was coming home, he said. He was giving up.

  ‘For God’s sake, Robbi, don’t do anything rash. Please sleep on it for a night at least, and let’s talk about it again tomorrow.’

  No, he had made the decision during the game. There was no more doubt about it.

  ‘I understand how you feel, everyone feels like chucking it all in when things aren’t going well. But afterwards it would only get worse. Keep at it for another week or two, one or two games, and you’ll get through it, I know. We’ll get through this. I love you.’

  She was afraid that if he gave up he would collapse completely. And that he would never forgive himself.

  Her words did me good, he wrote in his diary. But he’d been adamant on the phone: no, he couldn’t do it any more. His career was over.

  Robert made one more phone-call before switching off his phone so that no one could reach him.

  Marco answered enthusiastically, as always, when he heard his friend’s voice. After that he didn’t say anything for a long time. ‘I’m going to pieces here, I’ve got to get away, it’s not working.’ In Marco’s memory, his friend’s sentences circled constantly in his head, getting faster and faster and making him dizzy.

  ‘Robbi, just relax, try to pull yourself together. And if that doesn’t work, leave.’

  ‘But then I’ll be unemployed.’

  ‘For six months, and what’s that? You’ll find another club in the winter transfer market.’

  Marco was shocked by his friend’s plan to jack everything in but less bemused with the prospect of being without football for six months. He had just switched voluntarily from 1 FC Nuremberg to AC Arezzo in Italy’s Serie C. He’d believed that if he restarted his career at a distinctly lower level in a country where no one judged him by the three goals from his first seven Bundesliga games he would finally be rid of the constant pressure on his temples. Three days before his first game in Italy he heard the coach talking about him on television, saying, ‘He’s a player you just have to click your tongue at.’ Marco’s temples immediately tightened again. He dragged himself stiffly, limply, impotently through that first game. ‘If all you have is football, and it goes wrong,’ Marco says, ‘you’re left with nothing but doubts.’

  The next morning Robert woke up with the feeling that he had gone to sleep only a short time before. He had to get away from Turkey.

  First of all, however, he looked for a sheet of paper.

  11.08.2003. I’m finished. We lost the game 0–3. Didn’t look good from the first goal. After that I was very nervous in the second half. Was mocked by some of the fans. Spoke today to Father, Jörg and Terri. Would like to get away from Istanbul, do a proper course of therapy at last. At any rate, it can’t go on. Understood yesterday that I’m simply not up to the demands. Jörg tries to persuade me to have someone fly in or to take some medication. I don’t want to do that, I don’t want to do that here. Terri just rang and had to put the phone down again to cry. I feel helpless and anxious, I don’t leave the hotel room, I’m afraid of people’s eyes. I’d just like to live without anxiety and nerves. I know that breaking this contract will have far-reaching consequences, but I can’t think about anything else. I don’t know how to go on. I want to talk to Daum today, don’t know how to put it. Afraid of his reaction. Know that I’ve missed the opportunity to start a course of therapy several times in the past.

  The coach had given the team two days off because of the defeat. Not seeing each other was the best therapy, Daum believed. So Robert would have
to call Daum. The red-hot fear of the game was back, building up inside him. What would he say to Daum?

  His phone rang.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Robert, it’s Eike.’

  ‘Eike!’

  ‘I’m sure you didn’t sleep any more after that game than I did. I just wanted to say that if you fancy a coffee I’ll drop by. We could take a boat-trip on the Bosphorus, too, so that you can see how beautiful the city is. Or, if you feel like it, we could do what Olli Kahn used to do after games like that and go and train till you puke, until you’ve got rid of all your frustration.’

  ‘Eike, it’s great that you’ve called. I was about to ring you. I’ve got a huge problem, but we can’t talk about it on the phone.’

  ‘I’ll drop by at your hotel.’

  It was Robert’s voice that frightened Eike Immel. Had Teresa split up with him? Had someone in his family died? That would explain the hyper-nervous performance. ‘I still see myself knocking on the door of his hotel room half an hour later, thinking: Shit, what happens now? I would never have expected what happened next.’

  Thank God, Eike was a good guy, Robert thought. Always talking, always with a positive view of things, even though he had arthritis in his hip – he’d worn it out during twenty years as a professional goalkeeper. Not exactly ideal for a goalkeeping coach, but that wasn’t the issue right now.

  Light flooded through the wide windows into the hotel room. The Bosphorus glittered in the sun. On the opposite bank lay Asia.

  Robert waited until Eike had sat down. The chairs were ochre-coloured rhomboids.

  ‘I have to end my career.’

  ‘Robert, what’s up?’

  ‘I can’t go on. I’m just scared – scared to leave the hotel room, scared to open the paper, scared to put on my gloves.’

  Eike thought back a couple of decades, to when he had been an international goalkeeper, a semi-finalist in the European Championship, and had precipitously announced his resignation from the national team when he thought the coach was suddenly keener on Bodo Illgner. ‘I was scared before every season,’ Immel says. ‘Scared of my rival goalkeepers, scared of a new coach. On some days all it took was for me to discover a tiny hole in the pitch within the six-yard area – oh God, what if a shot lands in that dip? It’ll be unsaveable.’

  He knew Robert’s fear, Eike thought, and he knew how quickly it could evaporate. One or two good games later and Eike had always thought: I hope my defence is really bad today so that I have to deal with fifteen serious shots – I can stop anything!

  ‘Robert, you couldn’t have done anything about those goals.’ Eike really believed that. ‘And the fact that you were nervous … how do you think I felt the first time I played for Manchester City, suddenly in a foreign country? In the first half against Tottenham I went flying under two crosses like an absolute beginner, and later on I had a really good time with City. It’ll be like that for you, believe me.’

  ‘It’s pointless. The anxiety is there all the time. I can’t go on. I don’t want to go on.’

  They talked for two hours before Eike realised that he had lost his goalkeeper. He called Daum, Robert sitting next to him. A short time later the coach came to room 1296. He was ending his career, Robert said, he needed treatment. He never mentioned the word depression, only anxiety. Daum listened, he nodded, he said he understood. He would help him to get out of his contract.

  In the meantime, Jörg Neblung had got the number of a respected psychologist via the German Sports University in Cologne. He hoped she would be able to fly with him to Istanbul to examine Robert while he went on playing for Fener. He was the agent who covered his protégé’s back, who had to strengthen him whenever he could, Jörg thought. He had left a message on the psychologist’s answering machine.

  His phone rang. Perhaps that was her. It was Daum. Jorg had to come to Istanbul immediately, he said.

  * * *

  Tuesday dawned, the second free day after the game against Istanbulspor. Robert had nothing to do but wait for Jörg. He watched the ships on the Bosphorus from his hotel room, dozens of ferries, oil tankers and steamers. Nowhere is water more alluring than in Istanbul. You can stare at the Bosphorus for ever, and the ships with their leisurely, even movements take you away and bring you back in your dreams. But he was gazing right through the river. His Istanbul consisted entirely of the hotel room.

  He picked up the hotel biro with the blue ink and thin nib.

  12.08.2003. I’ve finally got to learn to listen properly to what my belly or my mind says. I don’t yet know why I did the thing with Fenerbahçe, probably because I thought I just needed to be needed again, and everything would regain its balance. But unfortunately it’s not as easy as that. My year in Barcelona has changed me a lot. All the self-confidence that I built up in three years in Lisbon has been taken away from me. In my current state of mind I’m not properly equipped for football. For a long time I wouldn’t admit it although I should have noticed: I was always glad when I didn’t have to play, even in training games. When the coach left me out, I presented it as a great injustice (which might have been the case every now and again), but in reality I was always relaxed and happy when I was watching from the sidelines. I’m also really scared of the opinion of the public, the press, and people’s eyes. I’m paralysed by fear. I don’t know how long ago it is that I’ve gone into a game excited but relatively unstressed. In future I’ll try to write from the soul a bit. I hope that helps.

  ‘Are you already in Istanbul?’ Teresa asked Jörg on the phone.

  ‘In principle, yes.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I’ve arrived, but I don’t know if I’ll ever get to the hotel. The taxi driver thinks it’s appropriate to hurtle through the city at eighty miles an hour. And in case you don’t believe me, he’s got all the windows open, too.’

  Teresa couldn’t help laughing. As if they’d made a prior arrangement, Teresa and Jörg had been joking with each other since Sunday. Somehow there must be a way through the despair.

  The next driver, sent by the club, was already waiting for Jörg at the hotel – windows closed, as he couldn’t avoid noticing. Jörg greeted Robert only briefly because he had to get going. They would see each other later. Jörg didn’t know where they were off to, so he had the feeling he was being taken to the furthermost corner of the city.

  Before long he found himself sitting in a flat with Turkish carpets and lots of armchairs facing five men from the club. The president hadn’t come: Yildirim had known straight away that this goalkeeper was beneath him. Jörg knew Daum and his personal assistant Murat Kus but not the other three men with their serious faces. He took them for vice-presidents but they weren’t introduced to him. In fact they were already shouting at him. Kus translated in a jovial voice.

  What was Jörg thinking of, what had been going on in his head, foisting such a goalkeeper on Fenerbahçe?

  Jörg knew the stories about coach dismissals and player sackings in Turkey. In 2000, the president of Bursaspor had taken a gun out of his desk when his German coach Jörg Berger insisted that the terms agreed in his contract were to be honoured.

  Jörg acted as if he hadn’t heard anything. ‘Robert needs a course of therapy, so unfortunately he has to go back to Germany. He’s agreed that with the coach. I would therefore ask the club to grant him a few weeks off.’

  ‘What? We’re supposed to go on paying him while he takes a rest in Germany? He can have a course of therapy here, too. There are wonderful institutions for therapy like that in Istanbul.’

  A servant walked through the room with a silver pot and silently and elegantly poured tea for the men.

  ‘If Enke wants to go, he should go. But in that case the contract is dissolved and that’s that!’

  It wasn’t as easy as that, said Jörg. If the contract was dissolved, Robert would be unemployed until the next transfer window opened in five months’ time. The club would have to give him some sort o
f financial compensation.

  ‘He’s not getting any more money! Why do you want money? You won’t get the money as far as the airport!’

  He could see that they were upset, Christoph Daum said. The best thing would be for Neblung and Enke simply to go.

  ‘I’ll have a word with Robert and let you know tomorrow, but I’m sure he won’t simply dissolve the contract and give up his salary,’ said Jörg.

  The conversation went round in circles for an hour, but then the vice-presidents, or whoever they were, stood up and left, without shaking hands. They talked loudly in Turkish and pointed at Jörg.

  They made him wait for his driver. Daum stayed in the flat as well. He plainly had nothing more to say to Jörg. Without a word of explanation, Daum picked up his phone and rang the Brazilian middleman Juan Figer. Loudly and without the slightest inhibition, Daum was already negotiating for the next new arrivals. Jörg was still in the flat after midnight, not knowing where it was or who it belonged to. He wondered whether life was perhaps just a soap opera after all.

  The next morning Robert had to act as if he was still a perfectly normal Fenerbahçe player. He had to go to training.

  Daum took him aside. What on earth was his agent playing at, demanding money on top of everything? People in Turkey were hot-blooded, they could get very angry.

  And Robert had only just begun to regard the coach as a friend.

  In his diary he tried to get his thoughts in order:

  14.08.2003. Fenerbahçe have threatened Jörg and me with open violence if we don’t dissolve the contract forthwith. Daum joined in, and didn’t act as middleman in any way. I was forced to accept that it was a mistake to open myself up to this man.

  ‘How are you?’ Teresa asked on the telephone.

  ‘Good – apart from the fact that they’ve hung me by my feet from the twelfth-floor window of the hotel,’ Jörg said.

  And for a moment Robert laughed with them.

  Jörg had moved into Robert’s hotel room. There was safety in numbers, he told Robert. Not being alone was better for Robert, he thought. Whenever they left the room, Jörg placed a wet hair across the door and frame so that he could check when he came back whether anyone had been in the room in their absence. It was a joke, to dispel the gloom, but at the same time it was serious. ‘We had to be prepared for anything, even for our passports to be stolen, drugs to be smuggled into our suitcases, whatever.’