Soccer in Sun and Shadow

Running Drugstores

In the ’54 World Cup, when Germany burst out with such astonishing speed the Hungarians were left in the gutter, Ferenc Puskás said the German dressing room smelled like a garden of poppies. He claimed that had something to do with the fact that the winners ran like trains.

In 1987 Harald “Toni” Schumacher, the goalkeeper for the German national team, published a book in which he said: “There are too many drugs and not enough women,” referring to German soccer and, by extension, to all professional teams. In his book Der Anpfiff (The Starting Whistle), Schumacher recounts that at the 1986 World Cup the German players were given innumerable injections and pills and large doses of a mysterious mineral water that gave them diarrhea. Did that team represent Germany or the German chemical industry? The players were even forced to take sleeping pills. Schumacher spat them out; to help him sleep he preferred beer.

The keeper confirmed that the consumption of anabolic steroids and stimulants is common in the professional game. Pressed by the law of productivity to win by any means necessary, many anxious and anguished players become running drugstores. And the same system that condemns them to that also condemns them for that every time they get caught.

Schumacher, who admitted that he too took drugs on occasion, was accused of treason. This popular idol, runner-up in two world championships, was knocked from his pedestal and dragged through the mud. Booted off his team, Cologne, he also lost his spot on the national squad and had no choice but to go and play in Turkey.