A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke Read online

  The next day he had another phone conversation with Parera. The contract had been set up. It would be best if Robert came in the following day to sign.

  ‘Enke joins Barça’ reported A Bola in Lisbon, and the news spread quickly.

  A Swiss private bank called Jörg. They would pay Robert and him a lump sum of six million euros. In return, the player and his agent would hand over all rights, the salary, signing on fee and commissions from Barça would go to the bank. ‘Think about it: you and the player have six million guaranteed and don’t have to worry about any details of the contract. We’ll take over negotiations with Barça.’

  ‘Interesting,’ said Jörg, thinking: mostly because it’ll be a good story later on.

  The president of Espanyol, Daniel Sánchez Llibre, who had bought Jörg his plane tickets to Barcelona but never got a chance to negotiate with him, wasn’t pleased. ‘I’m fed up with this. We do good work here. Our sporting director discovered Enke two months ago, and then along comes this other club and copies our idea. I feel as if I’ve been taken for a ride by Enke’s representatives.’

  Teresa and Robert landed in Barcelona. As if they were awaiting a national delegation, waving from grand flagpoles outside Barça’s office were the flags of the club, the city and the country – Catalonia, not Spain. In Parera’s outer office Jörg hesitated. The middlemen weren’t there. They were welcomed not by Gaby Schuster but by a dark-haired young man who was careful only to shave every three days. She had sent her assistant Wim Vogel. José Veiga, the second middleman, rang Jörg’s mobile from a noisy room and said he’d got stuck at Rome airport, he was really sorry. Normally middlemen appear punctually at contract-signings, because that’s when the money gets divided.

  Barça’s managing director turned up, and Parera asked them in. Teresa stayed in the outer office. When Parera’s office door opened again, she tried in vain to make eye-contact with Robert. He was staring at the floor. She looked at Jörg. He shook his head.

  In the contract, net had suddenly turned to gross.

  Jörg had stared for a long time at the figures in front of them, and all of a sudden he understood why Gaby Schuster and Veiga weren’t present. They would already have guessed that these negotiations wouldn’t be concluded in a single morning, without an attempt by the club to bring down the salary.

  ‘That isn’t the salary we agreed the day before yesterday,’ said Jörg. ‘That’s illegitimate!’

  Parera smiled benignly.

  Jörg looked at Robert and knew what he was thinking.

  They flew back to Germany the same evening.

  ‘Enke transfer off’ wrote A Bola.

  ‘Barça wants Fabián Carini of Juventus as its new goalkeeper’ reported Tuttosport.

  ‘Are Barça doing to Enke what they did to Köpke?’ asked Bild.

  Andreas Köpke, Germany’s goalkeeper in the nineties, still has a contract from Barça ready for signing among the files in his house in Nuremberg. When he was about to sign it in 1996, Barça suddenly signed the Portuguese number one Vitor Baía.

  On the flight back, Robert and Teresa barely spoke a word.

  Two days after the snub at Camp Nou, Robert consoled himself with the thought that there were goalkeepers in much worse situations than his. Back in Bad Windsheim with Teresa’s parents, he watched the desperate exploits of Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed Al-Deayea on television who conceded eight goals to Germany. The World Cup in Japan and South Korea had started.

  He wanted to be at the next World Cup, in Germany in 2006. But at the moment he didn’t even know who he’d be playing for come the start of the 2002–03 season. He was nervous, not angry. If Barça played with you, you stayed quiet and hoped things would somehow work out.

  Jörg phoned Anton Parera. They were still interested in Robert Enke. They would have to talk to each other again.

  Barça wanted to take Carini on loan for the coming season, Juventus said.

  Call the coach, Jörg said to Robert.

  When the contract negotiations had been under way, they had asked Parera for Louis van Gaal’s mobile phone number. The Dutch coach had been taken on by Barça a few weeks earlier and Robert wanted to know whether van Gaal saw him as first-choice goalkeeper or as a substitute. Now the phone-call had assumed a new urgency. Could van Gaal say whether Barça were still taking him seriously?

  The coach was on holiday in Aruba. ‘Yes, very clever of you to call, Mr Enke, that’s good. Because I’m the one who decides who plays for Barça.’

  He was just phoning to find out what part he would play in his plans.

  ‘I’m not the one who’s going to sign you up. The sporting director wants you. I don’t even know you. Each of the three goalkeepers in pre-season gets the same chance to make it as number one, even you, if you sign.’

  When he had hung up, Robert told Jörg that it had been a good conversation. Van Gaal seemed at least to accept his obligations, and would treat him fairly.

  Years later, when Robert told me about this telephone conversation, he stressed that van Gaal had barked at him straight away: ‘I don’t even know you.’

  Four days after breaking off contractual discussions, Robert was on his way back to Barcelona. He wore jeans and a favourite old torn greyish-blue pullover, the sort of clothes you wear when you don’t think you’ll be seeing anybody in particular. When he and Teresa landed at seven o’clock, Jörg was waiting for them. They immediately learned a bit about Spanish habits. Seven o’clock is still the afternoon in Spain. They were still working in the Camp Nou office.

  Jörg wanted to be prepared for fresh disappointments. He had a contract with him. From FC Porto. He had had the document, already signed by president Pinto da Costa, faxed to him. If Barça wanted to go on playing their little game, Robert would sign for Porto while he was still in Barcelona.

  Jörg went alone to Camp Nou. ‘My heart was pounding,’ he says. Teresa and Robert were to wait in the hotel on Avenida Diagonal until the salary they had originally been promised appeared in the contract; or until Jörg came back empty-handed.

  Robert never drank much alcohol, but in their hotel room he and Teresa opened the Cava from the minibar. Then the beer. On television they were showing, over and over again, the 1999 World Footballer of the Year Rivaldo throwing his hands over his face and falling to the ground, screaming. The Turkish player Hakan Ünsal had just hit him in the thigh with the ball, but the referee fell for Rivaldo’s melodrama and showed the Turkish player the red card. It was the highlight of that day’s play in the World Cup.

  Nine o’clock came and went, and ten o’clock. Still nothing was moving apart from Rivaldo.

  When his phone eventually rang, after eleven, Robert knew who it would be.

  ‘You can come now,’ Jorg said.

  In 103 years only two German footballers had been signed by FC Barcelona, Bernd Schuster and now Robert Enke. It was after midnight and he was at Camp Nou surrounded by radio reporters broadcasting the new goalkeeper’s words live. He spoke in Portuguese. On Spanish sports radio, where eccentricity is the order of the day, no one minded much. From midnight, a time when they should really be sleeping or doing something else, millions of Spaniards listen to sports broadcasts on the radio. Footballers are expected to take calls for interviews even at that time of night. On Cadena Ser, the most popular channel, the presenters also like to sing the commercials themselves.

  Robert was properly introduced in Spain the following day – by Porto’s coach José Mourinho. ‘Robert’s a safe bet for Barça. We wanted him too, but then Barça joined the running,’ he wrote in a piece for the Catalan sports newspaper El Mundo Deportivo. ‘Robert’s a great choice, both as a keeper and as a human being.’ Since many people in Barcelona drew their image of Germans exclusively from Bernd Schuster, he added, ‘Robert isn’t your typical German, introverted and a bit ponderous – quite the contrary.’

  Robert still had a good month of holiday ahead of him before the adventure with Barça began
. He couldn’t wait. When he visited Marco Villa, who was now playing for 1 FC Nuremberg, he and his friend went to the club’s training-ground.

  ‘Chico, I’m dropping by with Robert Enke, we’d like to do a bit of practice.’

  ‘Robert Enke? Who’s that?’ asked Nuremberg’s groundsman.

  All of a sudden it was funny that he wasn’t known at home. ‘I’m sure there are people in Germany asking: what, Barcelona’s signed Enke? For the B-team, or what?’ It was when he was happiest that he most liked to make fun of himself.

  A few weeks later he was sitting with me for the first time in a pavement café among the gothic buildings in Barcelona’s Old Town. He leaned back in his chair to hold his face in the sunlight. ‘And a few weeks ago we thought it was the end of the world because Kaiserslautern didn’t want me.’ He couldn’t help laughing at that, too. ‘Just imagine if Kaiserslautern had wanted me. I’d probably have said yes straight away. And my face, if Jörg had told me a few weeks later: oh, and by the way, Barcelona would have been another possibility!’

  He asked if I could recommend a Spanish teacher. That evening, back in their new home in Sant Cugat, behind the green mountains of the Collserola, he would phone the teacher straight away. After the first lesson he would give him tickets for Barça.

  ‘I don’t know why, but somehow I think everything’s fantastic at the moment – the city, the club, the life,’ Robert continued. The five-storey buildings stood like a rampart around the little square: no cars could be heard. The bright display at the ice-cream parlour opposite us was reflected in the glass door. ‘I’ve only been here for three weeks, but already I have the feeling I’d like to stay for a long time.’

  A homeless man made his way through the rows of customers outside the café, asking for money. He was the first person to recognise Robert that afternoon.

  ‘Enke, el número uno!’

  Robert replied in Portuguese: ‘Are you a Benficista?’ He couldn’t imagine that anyone in Barcelona knew him by sight.

  Say a sentence in Catalan, Barça’s president Joan Gaspart suggested to Robert before his official presentation. Louis van Gaal accompanied them both into the press room. The walls were hung with small portraits of all the international players who had served Barça. Van Gaal had buttoned up his stiff white shirt under his tie, which made his enormous neck look even more impressive than usual. Robert was wearing a short-sleeved red shirt, his hair freshly clipped by one of those barbers who always cut hair too short. As a result, he looked even younger next to van Gaal.

  For his presentation in Lisbon Robert had cobbled together a Portuguese sentence – É bom estar aquí – and he had been pleased with that. In Barcelona he spoke English and said only, ‘I am going to learn Spanish, and perhaps over time I will learn to speak Catalan as well.’ In Catalonia, where politicians used language as a weapon in the fight for independence from Spain, Robert felt it would have sounded subservient, transparent and false if he had said something in Catalan, especially when the club president had prompted him. He didn’t want to be used.

  14. 2002: Robert with the then Barça coach Louis van Gaal.

  ‘The three goalkeepers, Enke, Bonano and Valdés, are starting at nil, even if the chances are better for the first two,’ said van Gaal. ‘But everything can change.’ His voice boomed. ‘Because when I’m in charge no one has a safe place on the team.’

  Robert was new in Barcelona, but already used to the fact that the coach thought ruthlessness and honesty were pretty much the same thing. Four years earlier van Gaal had won the championship and the Copa del Rey (the ‘King’s Cup’) with Barça, with a team that was an outstanding combination of free spirit and organisation. Even so, his gruff manner made many players and most fans wish he would go away.

  I interviewed van Gaal once, when he was still working for Ajax Amsterdam. He waddled through the old Ajax training complex in his tracksuit; everything about him was enormous – his belly, his neck, his head.

  ‘Good morning, Mr van Gaal, I arranged an interview with you,’ I said.

  ‘No!’ he roared. ‘You arranged an interview with David Endt!’ Ajax’s press officer had set up the meeting.

  Once he had established this to his satisfaction, van Gaal politely invited me into his office.

  Ten days later, on the morning of the Champions League semi-final against Bayern Munich, he phoned me at the newspaper office. He was, once again, to the point and slightly annoyed. He had read the piece about Ajax, he told me. ‘You’ve hardly quoted me at all!’

  Robert initially fought the duel with Roberto Bonano for the goalkeeper’s spot unopposed as Bonano was still on holiday. As Argentina’s substitute goalkeeper he had been to the World Cup which meant he was allowed to start training a few weeks later. Frans Hoek, the goalkeeping coach, introduced Robert to the third goalkeeper, a twenty-year-old with a serious expression and thick black hair who was moving up from the B-team. ‘Robert’s manner was cool, but he had the air of a good person,’ recalls Victor Valdés.

  The first training session began. Robert’s poor Spanish and Victor’s broken English gave them a welcome excuse to do hardly any talking. The coach started a lesiurely kickabout to see what state the footballers were in after their holiday. With the eagerness of a boy who’s been allowed to join the seniors for the first time, Valdés studied Robert’s every movement. He hoped he might recognise a particular German style in him.

  Six years earlier, when Robert was learning how to dive from Uwe Kamps, Bayern Munich played Barcelona in the UEFA Cup semi-final. Standing behind Bayern’s goal that night was a fourteen-year-old ball boy, a goalkeeper with the Barcelona youth team. His name was Victor Valdés. He saw Oliver Kahn’s powerful jumps and reflexes as he stopped a shot from Kodro and a free kick by Popescu. It had been love at first sight, Valdés said. ‘My mouth was hanging open. Whoa! I thought, and I knew: this is my goalkeeper. From that moment on Kahn was my idol.’

  Valdés is sitting in the press centre of FC Barcelona’s sports city. The room is a curious hybrid, a Portakabin with two brown leather sofas. The fourteen-year-old boy is now a man with huge hands and broad arms. His black T-shirt with a life-sized eagle, its claws extended, emphasises his stature. ‘You know,’ says Valdés, ‘since the day I saw Kahn, I’ve admired the German school of goalkeeping. German goalkeepers fall much better than Spanish players after a save.’

  How exactly?

  He starts to explain, then gets up from the leather sofa. ‘We Spaniards just drop to the ground like a lump of meat – bump.’ Valdés lies down on the press-room floor. ‘The Germans roll.’ He does the threefold roll with both hands, not with his whole body.

  By the time Robert arrived at Barcelona in 2002 he had detached himself from the old German goalkeeping model and had learned to play a much cooler, efficient, rather than spectacular game. Now here was Victor Valdés, who had just come up from the B-team, admiring him for aspects of his play that Robert had left behind.

  ‘Robert rolled so aesthetically.’

  That’s impossible – he was meticulously careful about not making a show of his saves.

  ‘No, really!’ Valdés is beaming with enthusiasm. He can still clearly remember his first training session with Robert. ‘Robert was incredible. He made three or four incredible saves. I’d only seen one training match, and already I could see how much quality he had.’

  In the changing-room after that first session, midfielder Gerard López came up to Robert and yelled, ‘Man of the match, man of the match!’ Then he ran out of things to say in English.

  Roberto Bonano, Robert’s competitor and Barça’s number one the previous season, joined the team at its training-camp in Switzerland. Now Robert was doing the watching. Most footballers look bigger on the pitch than they do in their ordinary clothes, and Bonano was no exception. His extra-large torso looked even more enormous in his training sweater. But he was no match for his appearance. It quickly became clear that he wasn’t in any sort of
form. Disappointed that the coach had only put him on the substitutes bench for the World Cup, and despondent over Argentina’s failure at the tournament, Bonano had wanted to forget all about sport in the holidays. He was paying for that now.

  The season was due to start in three weeks’ time. Robert had a good feeling about it.

  ‘Robert, you’re standing too far back!’ called the goalkeeping coach.

  ‘Robert, you’ve got to take the ball with your left foot!’ ‘Robert, that was another poor pass. Concentrate harder on your feet!’

  Frans Hoek, his brown hair neatly parted at the side, shared a tone of voice with his boss, van Gaal, as well as the conviction that a goalkeeper had to be the eleventh outfield player. The attack began with the goalkeeper, so he had to be able to pass, kick or throw the ball precisely and far-sightedly. Barça’s defence pushed further forward than anybody else so that the team could play its big-hearted, attacking style of football. This forced the goalkeeper to move up himself, so that the space between him and his defence didn’t get too big. During his time at Benfica Robert had gone to great pains to train himself to move his standing position to six or seven yards in front of the goal-line. And now he was supposed to play even further forward? He tried his best, even though he felt uneasy about it, and already Hoek was yelling again: ‘Further forward, Robert! I want you to play like van der Sar!’

  ‘The coaches were always telling us about Edwin van der Sar,’ Bonano recalls. ‘Van der Sar does this, and van der Sar does that.’ When the Dutch keeper caught a corner during the European Championship in 1996 in the game against Switzerland and with a precise, long drop-kick seamlessly set up a goal for Dennis Bergkamp, in a few seconds he invented the so-called modern goalkeeper, a man who ironed out the threat of a goal before it could come into being and was the initiator of his team’s attacking play.

  ‘I’m not Maradona,’ Robert said. ‘I have shortcomings when it comes to playing with my feet.’ But he wanted to learn. He thought the coaches at Barcelona were well-intentioned towards him. At the time he had trouble seeing the negative in anything. It was just wonderful to be in Barcelona. And given Bonano’s struggle to get in shape, he was a virtual certainty to start the season as number one. ‘Robert had a fantastic attitude,’ Hoek confirms. ‘He was very willing. He was open to criticism and instruction.’