“No harm done”
Surprising confession: Nils Petersen chats about smoking as a professional footballer
Always a few cigarettes a day: Niels Petersen often smoked secretly during his time as a professional footballer
© Christian Kaspar-Bartke / Getty Images
Former football professional Nils Petersen smoked almost his entire career, as he now confessed in Toni and Felix Kroos’ podcast. The ex-attacker has a few anecdotes to share.
Former football professional Nils Petersen spoke in the podcast ““Just Lup” talked about smoking, among other things. For Toni Kroos and Felix Kroos, who run the podcast, this was nothing new; they know Petersen well because they both played with him. Toni Kroos at Bayern Munich, Felix Kroos at Werder Bremen. Later, Petersen, 35 years old, was known as a goal-scoring joker who reliably scored when he came on as a substitute. He played most of his career under coach Christian Streich at SC Freiburg.
“It didn’t hurt anything. It didn’t matter whether it was the national team, Bayern Munich or anywhere else,” said Petersen, who smoked everywhere. But he smoked “not much,” but always “a few a day.” Smoking had no effect on his fitness. Felix Kroos confirmed this. Petersen always “had top lactate levels.”
Nils Petersen sat down in the bathtub to smoke
After he made the big jump from Energie Cottbus to Bayern Munich in 2011, he had major concerns about smoking. “Especially in the training camp the question was, where are you hiding? You don’t want to attract attention in any way,” said Petersen. So he always went to the bathtub in the hotel room. “Then you closed the disgusting curtain and squatted in the tub in a really disgusting way. There were a few funny anecdotes.”
He also teamed up with the translator of the then Japanese Bayern professional Takashi Usami. “He was also a smoker and we always arranged to meet at the hotel. Then we went to his room because if the fire alarm went off, it would be his fault. But there aren’t many smokers left, the smokers are dying out,” said Petersen. Currently, more and more Bundesliga stars are using the oral tobacco snus.
Don’t forget to be a role model
Nevertheless, Petersen was aware of his role model function. He didn’t smoke in public or near the stadium. “I never wanted children to see me.” It would also have had an advantage for him, as he would have smoked less. He finally stopped smoking a few years ago. “Actually, nonsense too. “I went through it when I was at Bayern, where you actually have to get everything out of it,” he said.