The documentary series “Underground of Berlin” has been available on DAZN since Friday. It looks back at a generation of Berlin street footballers who learned to kick in the famous “cage” in the district of Wedding. The documentary is also a social study of one of Berlin’s neighbourhoods.
Patrick Ebert, Chinedu Ede, Änis Ben-Hatira, Ashkan Dejagah and Kevin-Prince Boateng play the “main roles” in the documentary; the quintet grew up in Berlin. But many others from the world of sport and show business also have their say, most of them are also rooted in the capital – including Andreas “Zecke” Neuendorf, Arne Friedrich, Matthias Sammer, the actor Frederick Lau and the rapper “Massiv”.
But the focus is particularly on Ede (34, 28 Bundesliga and 109 second division games) and Ben-Hatira (33, 101 Bundesliga and 58 second division games). “Here, everyone has distributed or conceded at times and was still happy. At some point it was even fun when you caught one,” recalls Ede, for example, of his time in the Kiez. The former Union pro was “brought up by intellectuals – in an antisocial neighbourhood.” His Nigerian-born father is a graduate engineer, his German mother a teacher.
Ede also kicked in the legendary “cage” where numerous later Bundesliga professionals matured. But they didn’t just learn to play football there, they also learned for life. “You can cry, or you go into the cage, and then you get hit on the bones,” said Kevin-Prince Boateng (34, 138 Bundesliga games). “It was a way to let out anger. I played against seasoned men of 35, when I was 13 or 14.” Everything he had achieved, he said, was thanks to Wedding. “Wedding raised me. Because of Wedding I know what is important for life and what I have to do for it. And that every day we live a struggle, with yourself or with others. And you just have to win that fight. “
“Maradona” Ben-Hatira
While the action was tough inside the cage, the elders were drinking alcohol and smoking pot outside, the protagonists recall. But one who hardly went out of the cage was Ben-Hatira – because the winning team was allowed to stay in the quadrangle. And Ben-Hatira almost always won with his buddies. “The player my father instilled in me a bit was Maradona,” the German-Tunisian says in the documentary. “That’s what I was called sometimes, because I also had a curly afro head and was the smallest. But they said Maradöner because they thought I was Turkish. “
Among the many young people with a migration background was Patrick Ebert. “Patrick, the little white boy, he also grew up with us,” says Ashkan Dejagah (35, 158 Bundesliga games), another “cage fighter”. Later the two kicked together at Hertha BSC, just like Boateng and Ben-Hatira.
Ebert, born in Potsdam, also remembers rough times, but also good times. “Berlin is charming because it’s multicultural, and I will also always celebrate being in Berlin for a weekend. But living here? That’s kind of too fucked up for me here. “