For half a year, debates at FC Bayern revolved around the signing of a “Holding Six” – a defensive-minded midfielder. But suddenly coach Thomas Tuchel says he no longer sees “the greatest need”. What happened?
Just a few more days and then a jury of linguists will once again announce the so-called “unword of the year”. Of course and rightly so, due to a lack of relevance, they will no longer pay any attention to the broad field of physical training and also football. There you can also find formulations that “violate objective appropriateness or humanity”, which is what the language police basically want to raise awareness of. Objectively speaking, the neologism “Holding Six”, which comes from the English Premier League, might even have deserved recognition this year, in order to make it the legitimate successor to letter monsters such as “climate terrorists” (2022), “distressed banks” (2008) or ” Herd bonus” (2007). A number “six” that holds something – yes, what? Mouth? A promise? Choose something better?