The way to Robin Benzing takes a few detours. Time change, training sessions, appointments in the new home country, it takes a while before the video call to Uruguay works. But then the German basketball player appears on the screen, lounging on the couch in his hotel room and looking relaxed in a South American way. From Germany to the Rio de la Plata, that’s not only thousands of kilometers away, but also hundreds of new impressions. Benzing talks enthusiastically about his adventure, and sometimes his cell phone shakes.
“Everything is a bit different here,” he says. “It’s not Europe, it’s very far from home and I’ve never played here before.” Because he “dizzed here” without his family at first, he sometimes gets homesick, but “it’s just my job. And South America is something cool, something special.” So special that many wondered: What does the long-time captain of the German national basketball team want in Montevideo, in a rather lower league, in which elbows and bottles sometimes fly through the hall?
The answer: He wants to play basketball, get out into the fray again before his career is over.
Benzing, 33, has already seen a lot of the basketball world, he played for FC Bayern, in Istanbul, in Zaragoza and most recently in Bologna, he threw baskets in the national team alongside Dirk Nowitzki and quite a few thought at the time that he could be his successor. 2.08 meters, fluffy throwing hand, this rare combination of mobility and length – even if he didn’t become a new Nowitzki in the end, he managed 167 international matches. 14 more than the eternal Würzburger from Dallas.
Robing Benzing has more international matches than Dirk Nowitzki
Today Benzing is no longer a national player, but he has recently played for Club Atlético Peñarol, the traditional club with the colors black and yellow, which they pay homage to above all for its football team. That a basketball player out Germany moved here of all places is one of the strangest stories of the sporting year 2022. After a year in Italy and a complicated summer for him, Benzing himself initially had other destinations in mind. But when he sounded out smaller offers from Europe or Asia, “my agent said there was another exotic offer from Uruguay.”
Then Benzing struck, especially since he speaks good Spanish and the coach of Peñarol let him know that he had been following his career for a long time and that he really wanted it. The contract now runs for five months, as long as the season in the local LUB league, and Benzing and his club meet champion teams from Argentina and Brazil in the South American Champions League. At least these countries are considered basketball nations, Uruguay, on the other hand, should mean a step backwards for Benzing in purely sporting terms. From an economic point of view, however, the country is better positioned than its neighbors.
“It’s definitely lucrative, the pay isn’t that bad here and it opens up the market for the rest of South America for me as a professional,” says Benzing. Since his family is also coming at the turn of the year, the stay in the region of cattle and steaks could last longer. Benzing also sees himself a little as an ambassador trying to go abroad, because there has never been a German in Uruguayan basketball. At the same time, he’s aiming for something beyond a professional salary. “All of my stays abroad have shaped me,” says Benzing. It makes “a huge difference whether you really lived somewhere else, you personally take so much with you.”
And anyway, Peñarol is a house number. “People are walking around in shirts everywhere, people have tattoos of the club and show them to you.” Basketball is very popular, he observed, even though the whole country recently watched the soccer World Cup with the heroes Suarez and Cavani. Even at home games in the hall, it’s a bit like football: the fans sing all the time, according to Benzing it’s “sometimes a bit of a hassle” on the floor because the referees let some things get away with it. And, beware of the cliché: Due to riots at the pre-season finale (Peñarol finished second), only a limited number of spectators are currently allowed in the arena. In addition, the new season started with a penalty.
But even if “the Uruguayans may not be the most talented players, they have a lot of heart,” says Benzing. Despite these adversities, you can see that he is satisfied, he wants to absorb what is new and is looking forward to the first barbecues with his colleagues. So only one thing remains to be clarified: his departure from the national team last summer. Then he was removed from the provisional EM squad by national coach Gordon Herbert because the DBB relied on younger, supposedly fitter professionals. A heartbreaking moment for Benzing, the model professional, who had traveled to every friendly game for years, and even missed the birth of his daughter because of a game in the DBB selection, who always appeared as a leader and integration officer.
Scene from Berlin after the Germans won bronze at the European Championships: Dennis Schröder represented Benzing as captain of the DBB – and he promised him a bronze medal. Didn’t quite work out, but Benzing was happy anyway.
(Photo: Marko Metlas/Imago)
At the behest of Dennis Schröder, he was back at the celebrations for third place, and the new captain even wanted to get his predecessor a medal. Nothing came of it, but Benzing felt valued again. “It’s still not completely over, it all hurt me too much for that,” he says. After all, there should now be a conversation with those responsible for the association. “I’m open to that,” says Benzing. “Everyone knows how it went. Everyone knows that it wasn’t okay.”
There is talk of a farewell ceremony next summer when everyone has more time. It was important to him to celebrate again with old companions, to bring the chapter to a dignified end. So maybe Uruguay is also that for Benzing: a piece of therapy to gain distance and make peace with the past. It seems he’s going to succeed.