AN UNDERDOG ON TOP OF THE WORLD: BEING KEVIN GROSSKREUTZ

Written by Gian Maria Campedelli, translated in English by Alessandro Seager (follow us on Facebook for more: CLICK HERE!)

And now I finally have a good reason to piss them off. Stare at me while I look for the inspiration of the most beautiful pandemonium thant you can imagine. Kevin won’t disappoint you, for sure.

I’ve won, I’ve won again but this time I’ve done with an even greater style. Don’t come and talk to me about international rules, gentlemen. I went to Brazil: I sprinted, I travelled and wankered tons of times, just like all of my teammates, from the very first to the last one. And I’m not really used to wanker myself.

I sat on the bench and suffered heat, a hell of a lot of heat, going from Dortmund to Brazil is not a joke.

So, no, don’t come and talk to me about regulations and all that bullshit: I didn’t play a single minute, but still, this world cup in mine. As a matter of fact, it belongs more to me than others.

Right, ‘cause in this army made of ferocious soldiers and precise strategists, so precise that they look more like Robots, I’m the maximum exception, the blink that warms the cold armor of a group, planned to tear down every single opponent. I’m the other way round hero, the false note, the wrong way out.

To you, hating our efficiency, our meticulous rationality, we are not histrionic jugglers like you…well….fuck… I’m with you! Hate them, hate these guys ‘cause I hate them too. Their scheduled football, their business, their marketing, their discipline. Talented kindergarten faggots: I throw kebabs, delicious doners stuffed with spicy sauce, I throw them in the eyes of my fans, I give my pee to the world as a gift, in front of those incredulous glances who are used to guys like Lahm, who looks like he just came out from a parochial confirmation, but instead he’s thirty, and makes me agree to, with that smile as if he was the worlds’ best friend.

Kevin in one of the few matches played
with Deutschland in his career.

I’m Kevin, scary and deformed, who, since always does Kilometers on the edge of every pitch, of every road. From Rot Weiss Ahlen to BVB , hideous grimaces and lungs of steel. For sure not the best footballplayer ever, yes, but, this cup, which if you look at it from the distance, looks like an enormous weissbier jug, I’ve won it too. And I’ve won it for you too.

To the perfect mechanisms of a teutonic war I opposed my mocking fleer, with my head held high, the fleer of football player far from being full of muscles and having necklesses, but more close to a drummer of an old band of the DDR, and believe me if I tell you that to accomplish such a challenge, the bad egg who turns on hearts and shifts the equilibrium, the one who thinks outside the box, and brakes the silence is more useful than a decisive football skill at the last minute. Mine is a hymn to imperfection: I’m sure you like best my uncomfortable anarchism, and nevermind if no almanac will have my name written on it, tomorrow. I was there.

Kevin's haircut after the winning of Meisterschale
with Borussia Dortmund, 2011.

Nobody will ever remember me in thirty years time, when you’ll be asking yourselves whether this Germany was one of the best teams in history, no doubt. But I’ll remember you and those, assholes, who believed that I should be kept away from the football pitch in order not to risk spoiling the perfect squad, where only young rampants, and wise experienced players, overloaded by records and farytales suitable for nephews. Good guys and role models, real champions inside and outside the pitch, blah blah blah, buuuuuurp!

I won’t forget you, and I’ll look at you just with the same fleer I’m looking at you right now, when only a vague memory of a weird and harsh surname will remain of me, ugly and battered, nerveless, without lungs, hidden behind hundreds bottles of empty beers, I’ll drink a toast in my honour, at the black blur.

And with my eyes shut I’ll whisper “I’m a world champion, dickheads”

Cheers!