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Our paths crossed for the first time in January 2000. I was then goalkeeping coach at a national team course for the U15 team and responsible for the eight selected goalkeepers and I very quickly recognised René’s talent. But others probably did that as well. Back in Leverkusen our U17 coach Frank Schäfer asked me if I'd seen René Adler. "Yes, I have." "And?" "Dynamite." It was recognised very quickly that René Adler should join the Bayer 04 youth set-up in the summer of 2000. After the contract was signed, the search started for a host family for René. But even with a big newspaper announcement there was only one interested mother with her 17-year-old daughter.
I had to put a dampener on René's enthusiasm for that accommodation quickly as it seemed too risky to me. So in the spring of 2000 I had a telephone conversation with his Germany youth team coach Jörg Daniel on the subject of host families. He gave me a terse response: "Then you take him." I repeated that sentence to my wife who just grinned and said: "You wanted him the whole time." Said and done. I informed our youth boss back then Michael Reschke. And a day later the builders were in our house to convert our loft for René. René moved into the Vollborn house on 8 August 2000 for the next four years and he became part of the family.
He then played one year for the U17 and one year for the U19 Werkself teams. After those two years he made sporadic appearances for the U 23 team to get a taste of senior football. He was also in the first team squad from 2003/04. But it lasted nearly four years before he played his first Bundesliga game.
The breakthrough came on 25 February 2007. After he had physical problems in the summer of 2006 and he spent several weeks with the Vollborn family with his career hanging by a thread he underwent an operation after a non-diagnosed broken rib. He had a titanium plate inserted. For six months he could only work in the weights room. When the Bayer 04 keeper Hans Jörg Butt was shown the red card for handling the ball outside the box on matchday 21 in the 2006/07 season in the home game against Eintracht Frankfurt, René had not even been on the training ground since the summer of 2006. Benedikt Fernandez was on the bench as the reserve keeper. René trained with me on the pitch with the ball for the first time the Tuesday after the Frankfurt game, played for the reserves on Friday and was the back-up to Benedikt Fernandez on the bench in the home game against Hannover 96. A week later, Hans Jörg Butt was still suspended, and he played his first game for Bayer 04 in the Bundesliga at Schalke and from that point he was the undisputed number one for the next four years.
Adel went to Euro 2008 as a young keeper alongside Jens Lehman and Robert Enke without having made his international debut. When Jens Lehman retired from the national team the competition started with Robert Enke to be the number one. René played his first international match on 11 October 2008 in the World Cup qualifier against Russia where he made a very good debut in place of the injured Robert Enke. A year later, on 10 November 2009, Robert Enke, who had suffered with depression since 2003, took his own life. René was then the number one for Germany. The 2010 World Cup was the first true high point in his career. But another rib injury that had plagued him for months stopped him taking part in the World Cup. He lost his status as Germany's number 1 to Manuel Neuer. René only won a total of twelve international caps.
The 2010/11 season ended for him and Bayer 04 with the runners-up slot and direct qualification for the Champions League. But René did not play another game for Bayer 04 as he was put out of action by a protracted knee injury. Bayer 04 signed the young and talented keeper Bernd Leno from VfB Stuttgart on loan for six months before finally signing him permanently in the winter of 2011/12. René departed in the summer of 2012. After twelve years at Bayer 04 and 173 appearances for the Werkself he moved on to Hamburg.
He played 129 games for HSV over the next five years before changing clubs once again. He joined Mainz 05. But his body held him back again in Hessen. René only played 12 games for Mainz in two years and he finally ended his playing career in 2019.
Early in 2017, René developed his ideas for the future after his football career. Together with the two founders, he is an active member of the team at the goalkeeping gloves company T1tan. On top of that, starting during his playing career, he has been a pundit with different TV broadcasters and he is still a much sought after interview partner. You can book him for a range of lectures via his website.
Today the father of two children lives with his family in Hamburg.
Dear René, I wish you a happy birthday. Have a great time and stay fit and healthy. All the best!
Minas Hantzidis was born on 4 July 1966 in Kettwig, near Essen, and he grew up in Germany. He developed a passion for football at a young age and, whilst still a youth player, moved from Wuppertaler SV to Bayer 04. The attacking and goal-scoring midfielder then made a name for himself in his first senior season at Bayer 04. In the reserve team, he scored goal after goal in the first half of the season, soon began training with the first team and was brought on as a substitute for the first time by manager Erich Ribbeck on 22 November 1985 in a home match against Bayern Munich.
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Sascha was born on 3 July 1986 in Leverkusen. He is the son of former Bundesliga 2 player Manfred Dum, who mainly scored goals for Union Solingen but also played for FC Saarbrücken, SC Freiburg and Wuppertaler SV. Sascha started playing for the youth teams at HSV Langenfeld at an early age. There, he caught the eye of scouts from Bayer 04 and joined the club at a young age. Following a growth spurt in the U15 team, which forced him to take a nine-month break, the left-footed player finally had the ideal conditions to establish himself in the Bayer 04 youth ranks. Even as an U17 player, he made the leap into the U19 team. Blessed with immense pace, Sascha primarily played in attacking midfield. Not the most technically gifted, but possessing a powerful shot, he found himself training with the first team in the summer of 2005 alongside Gonzalo Castro, while he was still a U19 player.
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The Werkself could not have hoped for a better start to the Bundesliga 2 North season in 1976/77. At the end of a week-long training camp in Quickborn, Schleswig-Holstein, coach Willibert Kremer’s side secured two convincing victories over BSC Brunsbüttel (5–0) and TuS Holstein Quickborn (6–0). Following this flying start, Bayer 04 faced a considerably tougher challenge on 23 July 1976 at 19:30 CEST at the Ulrich Haberland Stadium against Bundesliga side Karlsruher SC.
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On 27 June 2001, new head coach Klaus Toppmöller and his assistant Peter Hermann led the Werkself out of the changing rooms for their first training session. Joining them as they stepped onto the pitch at training ground 1 were the four new signings: Hans Jörg Butt, Yildiray Bastürk (with special permission from VfL Bochum, as Bayer 04 and VfL had not yet agreed on a transfer fee), Zoltan Sebescen and Michael Zepek, the record holder for appearances for the youth national team.
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Hans Sarpei was born on 28 June 1976 in Tema, Ghana, and came to Germany with his parents at the age of three, where he grew up in Cologne. Even before he was born, his mother and father worked in Hamburg in the import-export sector. There they met an older man who introduced them to German culture and supported them. Out of gratitude, Hans was later given his first name, although this man died before he was born. Hans comes from a sporting family; his older brother Edward and his nephews Hans Nunoo Sarpei and Kingsley Sarpei were or are also professional footballers.
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