Grandmas – great invention. They defend you in front of your parents, never forget a birthday, and feed you until you burst. According to US anthropologist Kristen Hawkes, children are better off when they can count on a grandma alongside their parents. This has always been the case with regard to the chances of survival for the offspring of Homo sapiens. And that has remained the case to this day. It is not for nothing that the term “grandma” is also used outside of the family as a seal of quality that is placed in front of a dish in cookbooks or on menus. “Grandma’s potato salad” enjoys unlimited trust, it simply has to be the best. The same goes for apple strudel, sauerbraten – and football players.
Nico Schlotterbeck, central defender at SC Freiburg, is such a kicker with an official grandma seal of approval. The 22-year-old made his first appearance as a national team player in a friendly recently and his grandmother Helga Keller thinks he has mastered his task brilliantly. She goes all out. The message of their relentless analysis, seen in a television interview (“Nico had a lot of the ball, but the other one, the striker, that’s a catastrophe, oh! The flick must have almost had a heart attack, what the net reinbracht habbe”) one thing is clear: all fools, except my Nico. And the penalty foul in stoppage time? “Yes, my friend, when he pulls out his barrel, right…”
No question, you don’t want this granny as an enemy. One can only hope for the DFB striker that they also have such a grandmother.
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