The stadium announcer is already calling him Lionel

Sometimes it is better not to listen to the captain. Noah Katterbach from Hamburger SV had this experience in a 3-1 win against 1. FC Magdeburg. “I told him a couple of times not to dribble forward all the time,” HSV captain Sebastian Schonlau admitted with a smile.

Katterbach ignored this advice, started dribbling from the halfway line, went past three opponents, finished his run with a step over and smashed the ball into the net to make it 2-0 . “After I scored my goal, he came up to me and said: ‘I will never tell you not to dribble again,'” Katterbach said in an equally poignant manner. SPIRIT1.

At half-time, the stadium announcer even jokingly spoke of “Lionel Katterbach” – referring to the Argentine superstar Lionel Messi, who became an eight-time world soccer player -time, mainly because of that dribble. The 23-year-old is far from such an honor. But Katterbach is the leading scorer in the last three match days.

As a reminder: The first six league games he spent all that on the bench. In the 2-2 draw against SC Paderborn, he was suddenly in the starting lineup and set up a goal. The full-back was also returned to the starting line-up against Düsseldorf (3-0) and Magdeburg. His dream goal was to crown this strong development.

When the final whistle blew, coach Steffen Baumgart cheered with laughter and fell into Katterbach’s arms. “I think the story is ours and Noah’s,” says Baumgart. “It’s good when someone trains, trains, trains, plays a small role, then comes in and performs like that. That makes me happy as a coach.”

This “own story” that Baumgart talks about goes back to 1. FC Köln. Katterbach was trained there as a professional and was part of the starting expansion eleven – until Baumgart arrived. “I got to know him in a position where I had Jonas Hector,” said Baumgart, who at the time moved the former national player from midfield back to the left back position.

There was no more room for Katterbach, who won the Fritz Walter Gold Medal twice and was considered one of Germany’s greatest talents. The result: He only played one Bundesliga game under Baumgart.

“Noah had to deal with that first,” said Baumgart. As a result, Katterbach first went on loan to FC Basel, then moved to HSV and suffered a torn cruciate ligament there. As soon as he had recovered, Baumgart was suddenly his trainer in Hamburg.

Baumgart notes, however, that Katterbach has “improved personally. Here in Hamburg I see him as a player who always gives, regardless of his situation – whether he is playing, not playing, in the team or not . That’s what you want as a coach.”

Katterbach also sees the relationship with the coach in a different way today. “I think our relationship has grown quite a bit here in Hamburg. “That’s also because my development as a person has come a long way,” says Katterbach.

It is not a given that a trainer provides good training performance. “Football is often very political. “You can do a lot and still not go to your work hours,” he said from experience. This is no longer the case with Baumgart: “He sees that I don’t let myself down in training or during my missions and just keep pushing. I’m glad he’s rewarding me for that.”

Katterbach also found a calling away from football. He founded the fashion label ‘Missing Piece’ with his girlfriend. “This is from both of us. But of course she is the brain behind everything because we just want to try to build something together apart from football,” recently appeared on HSV’s YouTube channel. “It’s really good for me to do something more besides football,” he said.

“She trained in fashion design in Switzerland and is passionate about it. I had an idea for a long time that we should do this. Let’s find out what turns everything. We are trying to stop the gas.”

This idea led to success at HSV.