It’s a special story, and Andreas Bornemann doesn’t want to and can’t make a secret of it. The SC Freiburg was one of only two clubs of his active time, with the Breisgauer he also made the first steps of the career after the career. To be able to attend the inauguration of the new stadium with FC St. Pauli on Thursday makes the Hamburg sports director happy.
“This is something very special,” says the 50-year-old. “Of course I’m happy.” He was born in Neuchâtel less than 40 kilometers from Freiburg, he only played for the local FC there (until 1988) and then for the SCF, for which he also played six first and two second division games. He then headed the club’s own football school, and in 2002 finally succeeded Andreas Rettig as manager.
Bornemann left SC Freiburg 14 years ago
Bornemann left the club in 2007, but he still knows “countless people” there from days together: “They’re really all still there.” Even then, there were similarities between SC and St. Pauli, and today “are the clubs are not fundamentally unsympathetic ”, as Bornemann describes it with a smile.
In addition to the connection that Kiezklub President Oke Göttlich has had with Breisgau for many years, his own story may also have played a role when it came to looking for a suitable opponent for the inauguration of the Europa-Park Stadium. The bottom line for choosing St. Pauli was “for many reasons”.
Hamburg has become a home for Bornemann
For him it will be a return to his own past, to his homeland, “where I always feel at home where I am with my family. Hamburg has already become my home. ”And he will be able to get an idea of what the SC has achieved since the time it started there two decades ago (“ There was nothing there at that time ”) .
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“The step now is already considerable,” says Bornemann with full respect for the new arena, which tomorrow will probably only be used to 50 percent. “It will probably be a test run for the entire infrastructure”, he explains and sees the game as such “rather as a supporting program” for the official act that will be held with grandees from politics, business and sport to celebrate the day. But that will not detract from the emotionality with which Andreas Bornemann will approach the journey.
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