A few years ago, Thomas Reis, 48, had a motto tattooed on the inside of his right upper arm: “Set your goals high and do not stop until you get there.” Set yourself high goals and don’t give up until you’ve achieved them! A globally valid message in globally understandable English.
If Reis had known at the time that a dream would come true for him as coach at VfL Bochum, he could have chosen the Ruhrpott idiom for his tattoo. Then it might be laconically written on his arm: “Let it crack! Get it done! With tasty things!” It comes out about the same in terms of content, but would also have fitted perfectly with the passionate football that VfL is currently playing under the direction of Reis. “You have to show mentality here in Bochum,” he knows, “and I’ll lead the way.”
It can no longer be reconstructed exactly when the native of Wertheim from the northernmost city in Baden-Württemberg finally fell in love with his adopted home of Bochum. In an interview he once joked that he had meanwhile accepted “Ruhrpott nationality”. After years as a young footballer at VfB Stuttgart and Eintracht Frankfurt, Reis also played actively for VfL from 1995 to 2003, later becoming the coach of various teams there.
After Reis switched to VfL Wolfsburg as a youth coach in 2016, Bochum brought him back in September 2019 – as head coach for their then desperate second division team. Reis has now spent what feels like half of his life in the city. “I’ve been naturalized for a long time,” he says proudly. For Reis, that doesn’t just mean that he lives, works and is greeted warmly in this city. Being from Bochum is also a way of life for him: “People in the Ruhr area are characterized by a very direct manner, which I really like. I also always want to be honest and direct as possible.”
“There’s a tradition of working together here. The miners used to have to stick together, too.”
This philosophy is also part of the explanation for how his team managed to transform under Reis from an unsuccessful second division penultimate (autumn 2019) into a passionate eleventh in the Bundesliga. You could call that a Cinderella story if such a candy-colored princess would even halfway fit into the rustic Ruhrpott. But she doesn’t. Also, Reis isn’t really the Prince Charming character type.
If you ask him or his players about the secret of success, terms like honesty, justice and respect come up. “The Ruhrpott mentality is shaped by we,” says Reis. He read a lot about the history of the city. “There’s a tradition of working together here, and the miners used to have to stick together.” For the buddies it was a matter of life and death, for the footballers it’s all about sport, and yet the club feels bound by tradition.
When the VfL players walk through the Ruhr Stadium’s dressing room to the stairs that lead them up onto the pitch, they should feel like they’re underground. A mining tunnel was modeled with photo wallpaper. Some players come from France, Greece, Japan, Brazil. You try to let them feel the Bochum legacy – in the cabin corridor, in the mining museum next door and every day on the training ground, where Reis works with a catalog of values in which respect, honesty and discipline play an important role. “VfL is a special club,” he says, “it’s important to us that we can look in the mirror after every game and say that we gave everything – and if it wasn’t enough, then the opponent was just better .”
A bit of mining atmosphere in the football stadium: The VfL professionals should see themselves as workers.
(Photo: imago)
As an example, Reis likes to talk about a footballer who was not blessed with the greatest talent, but who compensated for his deficits with passion. It’s his own story. “I wasn’t the fastest and had to compensate a lot with mentality,” he says, “so I turned pro, even though there were far more talented footballers in my year.” In Bochum, Reis achieved goals as a defender that he never dared to dream of: in 1996 he was promoted to the Bundesliga with VfL under coach Klaus Toppmöller, in 1997 they finished fifth in the table and then made it to the round of 16 of the Uefa Cup. It was the brightest time in Bochum football to date.
“Football professionals,” says Reis, “are like sensitive racehorses.”
When Reis became head coach in 2019, he told the players in his inaugural speech that he wanted to take VfL back to where it used to be. The players looked irritated, they were in 17th place as a second grader. But within two and a half years, Reis led them to midfield in the first division. When FC Bayern is a guest on Saturday, VfL can face the series champions much more confidently than they did in the instructive 0:7 in the first half of the season. With a comparatively tiny budget of 24 million euros, that’s quite a feat, and on March 2 Bochum is also in the DFB Cup quarter-finals, hosting SC Freiburg. The whole of Bochum is dreaming of the first Berlin final since 1988 (0-1 against Frankfurt).
When the VfL players around Sebastian Polter (right) need pressure in training, they get it from coach Thomas Reis.
(Photo: Maik Hölter/Team 2/imago)
Because there is more to Reis than football, he is always interested in how his players are doing. He sometimes asks the kit man or physiotherapist if they have the feeling that a player has something burning on their mind. “Thomas Reis is a big part of who we are and how we play,” says striker Sebastian Polter. “He’s very communicative and likes to make a joke, you can really laugh with him.” But as soon as it comes to training, Polter warns, you have to be highly concentrated: “The only thing that counts for him is performance, and if it’s not right, then he can blow up.” For Polter, Bochum’s success also has something to do with the types Reis chooses for the squad: “Many mentality players were signed, and I’m one of those who define myself through struggle and passion.” A team spirit like in Bochum sometimes requires unpleasant work: “You have to be open and honest with each other in difficult phases – and we do that.”
“Bro, concentrate!” is written on an advertising banner at the training ground next to the stadium. It wasn’t the trainer who had this spell added, but it could have come from him. “Carrot and stick” is what Reis calls his pedagogy. The carrot is certainly not neglected for him, who likes to have a snack himself. “Football professionals are sensitive racehorses that you always have to pet,” he says. It helps if you set high goals and don’t give up until you reach them.