Ten years ago, former soccer star Thomas Hitzlsperger came out. Now he and SZ reporter Holger Gertz are thinking about how things have developed since then. With himself. But also in the football industry, where homosexuals still have difficulty asserting or even finding their place. At the end of 2023, there were seven (in numbers: 7) openly gay professionals worldwide.
“Test of Courage” tells the life story of Hitzlsperger, the youngest of seven children in an Upper Bavarian farming family that produced a winner long before football champion Hitzlsperger: the cow Emilie was voted the most beautiful cow in Germany in 1984. At the same time, the book deals with the state of contemporary football, which, with its traditional rituals, sometimes feels like football from the past. However, because the ball is round, it moves, even when it comes to questions of diversity. Absolutely in the spirit of Thomas Hitzlsperger, called “The Hammer”, whose life motto is: It gets better.