“I just want to play”

“Lose Yourself” by Eminem is pumping loudly from the speaker. There are just five minutes before kick-off. Daniel Weitzell, a mountain of a man and veteran at SPG Dilsberg I / Bammental II, looks around at his team in the stuffy away dressing room. Sebastian Rudy straightens his shin guards. He and his new team are now fighting against relegation from Kreisklasse A Heidelberg. Coach Weitzell turns down Eminem and gets louder himself: “Stand up, men! We are going out there now and it will only go one way from the beginning.” He delivers a passionate speech to the players, his voice cracking at times as he does so. “We’re going to win here today. Have fun!” Cheers certain of victory ring out from the dressing room. Outside, Guns N’ Roses, “Welcome to the Jungle”, is playing.

The pitch at SV Waldhilsbach is in a very green area, surrounded by forests, a cemetery, a mini golf course and a skating facility standing empty as it waits for a skater. The club from the Neckargemünder district used to have HSV director Jonas Boldt in goal, and numerous employees of TSG Hoffenheim, such as marketing team member Daniel Uthmann, also wore or in fact still wear the black and red colours of the club, which current national team head coach Julian Nagelsmann once jokingly described as “TSG’s farm team”. The path to the derby leads through the Neckargemünder district and steadily rises uphill, before taking the last possible turn to the left before a dead end. If you continue straight ahead, you will end up at the Neckarriedkopfhütte in the forest after just 1.8 kilometres. This afternoon, there are about 200 people turning left. The news that Sebastian Rudy is still playing in the Kreisklasse A for an unknown period of time after his career as a professional spread like wildfire in the region. Attendances at home games have doubled. And despite the storms and heavy rain, interest is in today’s away game is even greater than usual.

The ball is on the half-way line, the hoardings are a little out of place, displaying the coats of arms of top tier sides 1. FC Cologne, VfB Stuttgart, Bayern Munich, Eintracht Frankfurt or Borussia Mönchengladbach. Sebastian Rudy could tell stories about all of them, he could write a book, but he is not the type of man to do that. In September, the 33-year-old quietly declared the chapter of professional football to be over for him – after some 358 Bundesliga matches, 295 of them for TSG Hoffenheim (a number no other player has managed for Hoffenheim). He played 29 times for the national team. In 2017, he won the FIFA Confederations Cup, and won the German championship with Bayern in 2018. There are players who move to the United States or Saudi Arabia to cash in towards the end of their career. Rudy, meanwhile, is wearing number 16 and getting the match underway at 14:32 in the Waldhilsbach drizzle.

On the pitch, he not only plays a key role in the midfield, he also takes all the corners and free kicks, spreading the ball around and constantly getting on the ball. After he announced the end of his career, the Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote that he could feel the rhythm of the game, absorb it, take it on, and thus gave his teammates a feeling of security. “They always knew that they had someone who knew how to play alongside them.” Dilsberg captain Frederik Schmitt confirmed that: “I don’t know how he does it, but Sebastian is always available for a pass. Just knowing that is a good thing. He knows what to do when.” And he does it calmly and thoughtfully – a quiet leader. It is Rudy’s third game with the team. The first one was a loss despite a sensational free-kick goal for the 33-year-old, while they only managed a draw in the second. The side lying twelfth in the table were desperate for a victory. And in fact, Daniel Chmielewski makes it 1-0 in the 25th minute, capitalising on a mistake by the Waldhilsbach keeper to find the bottom right corner.

However, the celebrations do not last long. A few minutes later, Ruben Beck curls the ball into the top corner from long range to equalise. It is a close game, going end to end, and the audience are wrapped up in it. Even the linesman, who works for the home team, gets emotional: “Come on, let’s go,” he shouts, attempting to drive Waldhilsbach forward. It’s a Dilsberg corner kick. Rudy places the ball down, raises his right arm and fizzes a cross into the penalty area, where Sven-Ole Harms heads home to make it 2-1. The sides disappear into the dressing rooms for the half-time break. “Bad weather, bad result,” the linesman says in summary as he puts his umbrella down. Among the spectators are TSG president Kristian Baumgärtner and former stadium announcer Mike Diehl. “For us as TSG, it is of course a pity that he made the decision he made. He has always been a top performer who helped shape the young players,” said Diehl. “For grass-roots sport, it is great that a player like him is playing in the local league. This shows that he is rooted here, and feels at home. Basti is such a down-to-earth footballer with a big heart, and he still really enjoys football,” said Baumgärtner.

For Rudy, fun is clearly what matters: “I just want to play, and it’s really good fun with the guys here. When I went to the first training session, I just wanted to see what it felt like. After five minutes, I said: ‘Get my papers sorted, I’m in.'” The rules in the dressing room are stricter than in the Bundesliga, he says and laughs. “I had my phone in my hand for a second. Someone saw it, and I had to pay a fine on the spot.” He said he did not miss the cheers of tens of thousands, and certainly not all the fuss about his personal life from the omnipresent public. “I was never that kind of guy. After such a long time in the game, I am happy to be able to decide how I spend my time and no longer be controlled by others.” At first, he did have some doubts about whether he would be tackled hard as a newcomer to amateur football: “As a former Bundesliga professional, you are actually a target, but so far, I have not had any bad experiences at all. It’s tough here, but fair and respectful.”

In the second half, however, he does get an unpleasant reminder of how hard the game can be. After an unfortunate challenge, he takes a blow to his knee and is forced off in the 60th minute, limping off the pitch. But he quickly gives the signal that it is nothing serious. However, his substitution is bitter for another reason: just two minutes later, Waldhilsbach finally bring Sebastian’s brother Florian into the game, who has recently returned to SV. The two brothers had actually been looking forward to facing each other. “The last time we played against each other in the Under-19s. He was at KSC, I was at VfB. We won 1-0, I scored the goal – I remember that very well,” said Sebastian Rudy.

His team, however, managed to hold on to the lead in the rain of Waldhilsbach even without him and go on to win 4-2 after an exciting final few minutes. In the dressing room, Rudy and his fellow players celebrate with chants of “derby winners” and a crate of beer. “I think it’s great that he’s playing with us – it gives us a real boost. There are also more players coming to training. It’s an extra motivation, and it definitely is for our opponents too,” said captain Schmitt. After they hit the showers, “opponent” Florian Rudy meets his brother one floor higher in the packed-out clubhouse. The two of them look relaxed as they lean on the bar and talk under an old sign, which reads “Fußball-Treff” (football meeting). What does he think of his younger brother’s early exit from his professional career? “I can totally understand the step [he has taken]. Even though he no longer plays professionally, football has always been his life. He just enjoys playing, football without any pressure, just for the fun.”