Soccer Extreme : Just like a good referee, good ball boys work in the background. They are invisibly pulling the strings. They control the supply of new balls like the OPEC controls the oil – independent from demand. It’s only in desperate moments, when they see it fit to take more drastic actions. Then they step on stage to score a goal, save a goal, start a riot or hit a goalkeeper with an iron bar if necessary.Jens Lehmann and Matthieu Delpierre trudge off after the 1-0 loss to Hannover.
Most of the time though they are content with having the monopoly on balls. Jens Lehmann, on the other hand, is a goalkeeper, who already claims the monopolies on shoes and headbands. He won’t let the one on balls go without a fight. And so he wasn’t ready to come to terms with his fate in Saturday’s Bundesliga game between Hannover and Stuttgart (1-0).
Stuttgart were – quite predictably this season – trailing a goal and were desperately looking for at least a late equalizer. And so Jens Lehmann took matters in his own hands and rushed to the sideline to get the ball back into action a bit quicker. The ball boy, 14 year old Aron Schulz – as BILD found out, then did what he later described as his job.
"I just did my job. I threw the ball to him and it landed on his head."
That’s one way of looking at it. Jens Lehmann unsurprisingly shared a different viewpoint.
"We make mistakes. We are confronted with other people’s mistakes. The ball boys waste time. You have to live with that in the Bundesliga. I’m angry at the culture of wasting time and cheating."
Sounds good on the one hand. Feels wrong hearing it from Jens Lehmann on the other hand. He then capped off his interview taking an indirect shot at the boy’s parents.
"I have to go now. I have to go home and raise my children properly, so that they behave correctly…"
Where correctly presumably equals: throwing headbands and shoes is OK. Throwing balls is wrong. (theoffside)