For six weeks he is 66 and he stands just before the annual general meeting in which he himself again for election as FC Cologne has no president. These are just two of the many points on which you can with football legend Wolfgang Overath come in these days the conversation. But with the Sunday Express, he speaks not only about the actual dates of his life. This way even to his parents and childhood, his career and his personal happiness about the culture of players past and present, about moments in which the FC takes him to sleep - and the question of whether football is played in heaven. One of the very rare interviews in which he makes deep insights into his heart.
The full interview - read here:
Wolfgang Overath in EXPRESS-Interview
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"People still have to be times 20" is a dream of many who are not. Do you want to be another 20?
Sometimes I would be able to go back in time like a little bit. But such is life, the clock will continue relentlessly and will always be faster. When Elder told me earlier: "The time is so fast," I have always thought, "That's not true, he's got about the same time as me." Today I see it differently.
They say yes, with 66 years of age when life begins. Are there good hope?
No, with 66 would be too late. I live a long time and my life was always beautiful. I always had good luck, always lived on the sunny side. If my life could still time to live, I would live the same way.
Accept your age?
If I am pushed on it, how old I really am, I think to myself: "This can not be true." I imagine my father, at the time when I was a little boy - he was already an old man . I go into the hall, with 30-year-olds play soccer. That would have been unimaginable in my time with my father.
Compare your life sometimes with that of your parents?
Of course. It was crazy, dear parents, very simple people who have done everything for her eight children and it led a hard life. This has affected me.
What has particularly impressed you?
When I was seven, I had to go from the middle of each month, write in the shops. Because my father was on 1 his salary, and from 15 handed the money anymore. I've made up my mind very quickly: "You must never be subject to such worries as your parents." It was my attitude: fighting, fighten get anywhere.
When did you begin to live it?
I built my first 19 years with Sechsfamilienhaus and then made a lot of real estate. While the others in training camp, playing cards, I've built, studying documents and phone calls. That worked.
Are they well come through the financial crisis?
I've got no problem because I am also in money matters is very conservative. I have a lot invested in real estate and always had my money in banks, savings and credit unions that have withstood the crisis.
You are a religious man. Do you believe that God has given you a bit of luck?
I think that the Lord has kept his hand on me. I thank him every night in prayer and I show him as a satisfied and grateful man.
Do you think that you can play football in heaven?
Typical EXPRESS-talk question. I think definitely that it continues after death. Whether football is played? Furthermore I have not made much thought.
How do you show gratitude outside of thanks to God?
My mid-40s was a crucial point. I had a lot of money, but suddenly had doubts: "There must be other values in life." Then I started worrying about players from my team, which was not so good that they wegzubringen by alcohol, their pay off debts.
They also act for shelter-less ...
... After a very special Christmas experience. Then I got into conversation with a homeless man, what has got me thinking. A year later, I started to invite the homeless. That is until now has remained so ever three days before Christmas.
At that time they adopted their daughter?
We had seen a film about Brazilian street children. This has made me concerned. My wife then asked: "Should we not adopt a child?" All of them have immediately said yes. And even that has brought us luck, because Silvana has returned to us uncanny warmth and love.
So much happiness in life could also use your FC. Are there times where you will be taken from him to sleep?
Oh, yes. Earlier, when I played, I was able to move and intervene. Now I sit there and have no chance. If a team loses a few times and comes in a phase where it abwärtsgeht and I will personally criticized for taking me wonder: Why am I doing this to me?
You could make it easier for himself? Why do they do the job at all?
Because I understand a bit about football and I feel I can help it go forward. It comes out of the attempt to help.
How is it that when you shoot player or coach can, which is personally very sympathetic?
Hard, very hard. It hits me. I think I can be very hard, but there are situations in which I fight very much.
Do you sometimes despair when you see the players of today? That's a completely different lifestyle than you?
If it does not work out the way I imagine it, I think to myself: There is much more important things in life, as if a good or bad to play football. I would just also think that if I EXPRESS skin then into the pan.
Sometimes one has the feeling that the players of today are in nightclubs rather than on the lawn?
It is a cliché. It is not that earlier all were brave and kind and go now, all in the discos. Previously, went away, I also, incidentally, and now it goes away. Those were different times in football too. When we left, we were outside our rest. Today, if one goes away, call the next day at the same seven people who want to report it.
If there was a time machine, and the championship team of 1964 would compete against the current Elf? Who has the best chance?
That can not compare. The 64er had physically zero chance. Each of the guys who play today, which would decrease to 10 yards three meters. It is a completely different physical situation. We had our times of good players and great teams - and who even today.
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