Thomas Helmer

Documentary film on the first half of the 1992-93 season of Bayern Munich football club. Covers ordinary workdays of footballers from every possible angle. Impressions from training ground, dressing room, match days, meetings with press, Oktoberfest; interviews with players, managers, attendants, spectators.

For the 1994 World Cup, Germany entered as the favorite and defending champion, but was eliminated in the quarterfinals. Internal conflicts, media campaigns, and public criticism of coach Berti Vogts led the so-called "eleven friends" – players like Lothar Matthäus, Jürgen Klinsmann, Stefan Effenberg, Bodo Illgner, and Matthias Sammer – to maneuver themselves into a collective nightmare within just a few weeks. This documentary takes a behind-the-scenes look at Germany’s memorable World Cup and shows how one of the strongest German teams of all time spectacularly failed.

The focus is on the years 1996 to 2001, into which the likes of Lothar Matthäus, Jürgen Klinsmann, Mario Basler and Stefan Effenberg provide insights on how a group of individualists became a team that laid the foundation for FC Bayern's current success.

“Being Jérôme Boateng” tells the story of a soccer world champion between triumph and downfall. From the soccer field to the 2014 World Cup title, from celebrated symbol of integration to convicted perpetrator of intentional bodily harm against his ex-partner. The documentary series looks behind the façade of professional soccer—a system that produces heroes but neglects people. It also addresses the question of how a soccer player is stylized into a role model by the media and society and burdened with excessive expectations. Boateng's story is thus also one of false projections that encourages us to reflect on our treatment of and longing for sports idols: What do we want to see in them? Do soccer players have to be heroes?

In this ten-part series, WDR takes viewers back to the 1990s—a time when cell phones were still huge bricks pressed against people’s ears, music channels like EinsLive and Viva were launching, and the old industrial area was transforming into a recreational destination.