Blind soccer: Dreaming of the World Cup | DW Documentary

This is Ali Can Pektas, 30 years old and a 5-time German champion in blind soccer. The ball rattles ... ...So Ali can hear where it is on the field. His goalkeeper, his coach and a guide let him know where he is on the field and where the net is. It’s then up to Ali to beat the sighted goalkeeper. It’s a kind of freedom. Just not having to overcome any obstacles, not having any hurdles. That's what I like about soccer, that's what it does for me. When you find something like that in life, when you have something that, while you're doing it, everything around you no longer matters, then I think: you've made it. Sound is the key to blind soccer. Ali Can Pektas listens for the ball’s rattle, his opponents shouting, and his coaches telling him where the net is. And then he can run, dribble and score, even though he’s blind. Everything is designed so that I can do it. There are two boards on the sides but otherwise, it's just a 40 by 20 meter court. The obstacles are my opponents. It's the same if you want to drive fast but can't do it on the highway because there's a traffic jam. But if you're driving on a racetrack, like the Nürburgring or something. Then you can step on the gas. That's a moment, a situation that's created for you so that you can do that. And that's why it gives me an extreme feeling of freedom. Of course I've kept a few things. Not that much, but I've kept a few things from back then. Maybe I'll spread it out a bit. Here’s Ali in Kicker. 2007. Typical of his patient style back then. The highlight: first German championship, the celebratory pictures. It all started in 2006, when I somehow, purely by chance, saw a few wild guys and girls you could almost say, young ladies, running with a ball, a large ball, and enthusiastically playing soccer with it. They were all completely blind students and when I saw that, it just clicked. It was just an idea. It's my favorite sport. Why shouldn't my students be able to play it too? Soccer for the blind had then only just arrived in Germany. Peter Gößmann started a club at his school. 13-year-old Ali Pektas was in the game from the start. Here he is playing in the first Marburg blind soccer tournament in 2007. 16 years later The next generation from Marburg’s school for the blind are now practicing. Ali visits the gym where it all began for him too. That was the beginning of it all, touching the ball for the first time, the first practices. We didn't have a field back then, so we trained for the championship here. It felt like home back then, the gym. I was there two or three times a day. This place just gave me a feeling of freedom, especially back then. Freedom.. It’s the same feeling Ali, who has been blind since birth, gets while riding his bike. You ride towards the sound. Of course, it's pretty easy in such a large gym. If you can roughly estimate the distance and know that you shouldn't turn the handlebars any further to the right because you can just hear the wall next to you, it's just like the barriers in the game. That's why it works quite well. That’s how I can take a lap. Please stay up. Great, now I’ve trapped myself. Figures. Done. Ali's old classroom at the school for the blind in Marburg. He became a student here in 2003. After elementary school, I went to a completely normal school, like a school where students could see. And after that, my parents started asking themselves: what do we do now? And back then, I think they made a very courageous decision to say: let’s get out of our comfort zone, he should go to a boarding school, learn to be independent, and be trained and taught according to his disability. His former teacher remembers very well. Challenging student. He didn't just listen, he always wanted to discuss. He had lots of good ideas, but sometimes rules and deadlines were also necessary. Homework was certainly not his favorite thing. When school was over, I usually just had practice or other interests. I wanted to play soccer. Homework, you know how it is for a student, it’s something you do at the last minute. I can also remember often doing it at a quarter to eight, sometimes I even did it during lessons. I tried everything, it’s true. Traditional school curriculum is a particular challenge for blind people. If we look at a map of Europe, we can see at a glance roughly the size of Germany compared to the size of Malta, or that Turkey is only a very small part of Europe. It’s much more difficult for someone who has to learn this through touch. It takes longer. And you can see that Ali is gradually crossing the borders here and feeling along the important routes. Ali can also feel his first big achievement here: the trophy from his first German championship in 2008. Once you've won that, it's just like when you get any award for something. Once you've won a personal title or a team title, it's addictive. You don't want to stop because you know that if you've won it once, you can win it again. Will this season bring a 6th championship? Ali has an even bigger dream for the national team. The highlight will undoubtedly be the Paralympics. Germany has never qualified for them in blind soccer. And it would be an absolute dream come true. Because then I would really have played everything and could really play at the top level. You can't compete with better teams than at the World Cup and the Paralympics. And simply soaking up the atmosphere in the Olympic and Paralympic village with all the athletes from all over. I think that would be unforgettable. And I would love to experience that, and not just on TV. German blind footballers all have a day job. Ali works in cash management at Deutsche Bank. Today he’s working from home in Ober-Ramstadt. I always try to schedule my practices so that I can combine work and training. Today, when I'm working from home, I can fit a workout in on my lunch break, depending on where meetings are. Or I can do a short workout before work. Sometimes I do both before and during my lunch break. And then after work, I can actually go out on the field. Like today, and do a bit of ball work. Ali's computer screen is dark. He only brightens it to show us how a blind person works on a PC. A computer voice reads out what can be seen on the screen. I like it when the voice isn’t too human. It can do what it does, do its job, for me much faster. I get more out of that than if it spoke to me very slowly. Now, for example, it's halfway through. It allows Ali to work easily. List of five objects. Link, Deutsche Bank, 1 of 5. link, Corporate Institutions, 2 of 5. link, private clients, 3 of 5. link, client logins, 4 of 5. locations, end of list. But some people think blind people can’t even work. Maybe you can't imagine it or just don't know. It's absolutely fine to ask questions and be curious. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to learn. But it's not okay to live with prejudice and believe that that’s how it is. So to say: Can you work at all? is wrong. The question is actually: How do you work? Because if you ask me, How do you actually work? Then you've at least understood that I work and want to know how. Then I can help you. But if you ask me: Is it even possible to work as a blind person? Then I have to assume that you live in a world that is full of prejudice. I think it always depends on how you ask the question. Hello Rasmus. Hey buddy, how are you? Good afternoon, everything’s great. Yes. Very good. Nice at lunchtime. It doesn't get better than this. Ali works full-time at Deutsche Bank. He also has practice 6 to 10 times a week. Ali will get special paid leave to attend the World Cup in the summer. But he has to use his annual vacation to prepare. If, for example, we have to take days off for the Bundesliga because we have to travel to Hamburg and leave early on Friday or something. But if you factor in the two, three or four days, you end up with just under 30 days that are purely for soccer. You have to do your work for the bank and you have to bite the bullet and say that's just the way it is. You just don't have the vacation. Even if I didn't use my vacation to relax, I used it to do what I like to do best. And 10 more... 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and stop. Wow, awesome, buddy. So, Rasmus. Then, if you have time, I'll see you tomorrow. We'll do that. See you then See you later, friend. Ciao. Bye. I just got a few more messages. Let me see if there’s anything important. OK, there was nothing. That's not important. OK, I'll reply in a sec. Perfect. Let's put this away. Ali also trains with sighted players- at FC Ober-Ramstadt. It was something both I and the national coach wanted to get another practice session during the week. Because, as is the case with most players, the clubs are a long way away. Two hours there, two hours back in my case, with waiting times. Here I can do a lot, like work on ball awareness, passing drills, warm-ups, sprints. And then, when they go into their scrimmage as a team, into their strategy lessons, I have my individual things, such as passing or shooting goals, or certain dribbling routines. Then I can refine those things. Ali has two important things in his life: Soccer and family. Two of his cousins are at practice today. Because he’s important to us. Exactly. That was well put. Yes, I agree. He is important to us. Exactly, I grew up with him and we used to play soccer together. They even experienced the first kicks together. Exactly, and I just love watching him do what he enjoys. He does it with a lot of passion and it's just beautiful. Ooooh, that picture is perfect, I think, with my mom and Ali Can. I think it's so beautiful. How old were you then, mom? I don't know, 23. 23? That's what he always loved. Tearing things off. From the bottles? Yeah, he really loved that. That was his hobby. Tearing off the labels on bottles, he always tore them off, he always thought it was great. He always tore off our wallpaper, too. Baba, Ali Can always tore down the wallpaper in the room, too. Ali's grandfather Hasan came to Germany from Turkey at the end of the 1960s. Ali's parents followed 10 years later. And in 1993, Ali was born blind. You guys. Ali Can with his angelic curls. So cute, isn't he? When Ali's mother thinks back on this time, all her feelings come flooding back in her mother tongue, Turkish. How can I explain it, I don’t know. Basically, despite the fact that he had an obstacle, a health obstacle for himself, in the end a door always opened to give you hope? Exactly. I'm also very proud. He's achieved everything he's wanted so far. I'm satisfied, of course. I didn't think he would make it this far. But he's doing it. He's studied, he's playing soccer, he has his job, he's independent. He can do everything. Yes, what we as a family have given him and what he has achieved, of course I'm proud. Not everyone can do that. Ali often travels from his job at Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt to Marburg for soccer practice. As if the journey itself didn't require enough attention, Ali is sometimes offered the wrong kind of help. For example, people saying I should take the escalator because walking up the stairs could be a problem. I mean, that's nice advice, absolutely, no question. But if I couldn't walk up stairs, then I probably wouldn't walk up stairs. It's just a bit difficult sometimes but, as I said, they don’t mean any harm, so I don't hold it against them. But of course I always have to prove myself to others so that they understand. I think that's the crucial point, which really shouldn’t be a part of life. The S-Bahn stops in front of you and then the doors start to beep. You can either decide to take the door to your right or to your left if you are standing between the doors. And then take the one closest to you. That's spatial hearing, just like you have spatial vision. I don't think it's that different from spatial vision. You just somehow know what sounds closer to you. As a sighted person, you can also tell whether the door to your right is closer to you than the door to your left. And it's actually the same with hearing. I don't think it's a special feature. Taking the train to Marburg for practice and back home to Ober-Ramstadt takes up a lot of Ali's time. He is often on the road for 5 hours. Exhausting. I've never actually thought "I'm going to give up" before, but I certainly can't now. Yes, as I said, sometimes it's just exhausting when there are delays, especially on the trip home. Back home it can be an issue if it's late at night. And to Ober-Ramstadt that's not the most popular destination. It’s not like the train runs every five minutes. You have to wait a long time if you miss the train and you can end up standing in the main Frankfurt station for an hour. I can think of better things to be doing at 11 o’clock at night. Ali uses the time to check emails a computer voice reads out everything that appears on his smartphone. Ali is dependent on the train, there is no alternative. Not the best conditions for a competitive athlete. Sometimes I have to miss practice in Marburg because it takes so long to get there. And if practice starts at 6:30 p.m. and you actually planned to arrive at 6:10 p.m. but the train is three quarters of an hour or half an hour late, then you just turn around in Frankfurt because it's just not worth it. The trip went smoothly today. His team's goalkeeper will pick him up at the Marburg station and drive him to the soccer field. That's actually one of the few things I envy about sighted people. Otherwise, I've never really had that feeling where I say, phew, why? But driving I really do envy them that. So for me, this flexibility is simply a pivotal point, to simply organize my own time. If, at some point in 10, 15, 20 years' time, autonomous cars were to be on the roads here, I think that would be a huge relief for me and my everyday life. Because that would give me even more independence. That would be a great day. For Ali to drive his goalkeeper Nils Hemmenstädt to practice. Work, travel, no breaks. Why does Ali do it all? Ali always wants to be the best. But there are others too. And there are others who are better. That's the problem. But that's where Ali wants to be so he invests everything. And then, unfortunately, he also suffers setbacks due to injuries and so on. But he just has to get through it. A few weeks later in Schiltigheim near Strasbourg in France. Let’s go in A preparatory tournament for the World Cup. If you can play international matches, if you can represent your country at the highest level, if you can compete at the pinnacle of the sport, then you don't really need many things to motivate you. But finding the right balance between taking the day off, living in the day and keeping focused that’s the most important and actually the most difficult thing about this job. Ali and the German national team prepare for their evening match against Turkey. Tighten your stomach, your stomach is solid. Fists, too. Arms tight, tight. Breathe in. Breathe out. Release. Out on the field, England is playing Japan. Two teams that are more professional than Germany. Japan has its own association specifically for blind soccer, which supports the team financially. Many English players only have to work part-time. The rest is paid by the English Football Association. That's essential, really. If you look at the top 5 to 10 teams in the world, they have some form of financial support. And it just allows you to have that freedom of not needing to work 8, 9, 10 hours a day and then try and go to the gym afterwards or fit in coaching. So when possible, you can prioritize sport. Which is what needs to be done if you want to be part of a big winning team. Lunch. Seven hours until the game against Turkey, the European runner up. The German national blind soccer team also receives financial support. Travel, meals, accommodation the German Disabled Sports Association and the DFB Sepp Herberger Foundation contribute a set budget. But the players are not paid at all. It’s just very, very important, if you can't make a living from a sport like this, that opportunities are created, so that athletes are simply better supported, so they can manage this balancing act. That you find an arrangement somehow, that you allow half days or even extra days for the guys, because, ultimately, they represent their country. And really give their all. And you wish that there were or could be a way. And I think that really is a crucial point for us going forward. As long as we can't manage to create more professional structures, in my opinion, we might be successful but only because the players really want it. That's what they do, they invest everything. And that's what I wish for them all. I really hope they can qualify for the Paralympics in Paris, even though it's very, very, very difficult. But as long as it’s still like this, it's not a foundation or a level on which we can work. Ali has two full-time jobs the unpaid one as a blind soccer player and the paid one at Deutsche Bank. We talk very openly about when it fits for him to take time off for soccer. It’s not just simply a given. You have to look at how you can manage it, also out of fairness to others who naturally also have free time but can’t get out of work. Ali's annual vacation is often taken up with soccer tournaments. No time to relax after a national tournament. Processing all these experiences, not actually having much time for it and then having to perform again the next day at work it's not actually that easy to manage the transition. I still find it difficult, even after all these years. I think it's just natural for people to need a break. But that just can't be arranged. In other words: I arrived yesterday, unpacked and today I'm going on somehow. I don't know how. You just drag yourself through the day or the week. Things are getting serious. The final preparations before the World Championship against European runner-up Turkey. It's always special for me, of course, because that's where my roots are. I always look forward to these international matches because it just has a special meaning for me. And winning them would of course mean even more to me. Ali, come on, get the ball. Three, two, one now! Come on, keep going, four, keep going three, keep going two don't stop! Come on, keep going The game only works through communication. Unfortunately we can't make eye contact. This means that there is a lot of shouting. By the goalkeeper who can see, the coach at the side who can see plus the guide behind the opponent's goal. And this gives you a picture in your head during the game so in principle, blind soccer can work just like sighted soccer. The fact that blind soccer naturally has a lot more physical contact than sighted soccer and that there are much, much more physical fights, that's part of the sport, but it also makes it more strenuous. Silence, please! Guide, please. OK, they've got a really big goalkeeper. Here's the center. Here's the center, OK. Left, left post. This is the right one, Alex. And goal center is here, here, here. You've lost the game, you can't change it, you can't influence it, you can't do it over, it's just over. And then there's the disappointment. At that moment, I think it's just about being far away from everyone else and just taking a moment to reflect. I can't do anything with uplifting words, I just need time for myself. And then I'm fine again, but it's just really that moment when you turn inward a bit and collect your thoughts a bit, maybe tame your emotions a bit and then everything is fine again. I think we put in a very, very good effort. Sorry for all the fans watching at home and watching here. I'm sorry. It's a bit of a shame to be robbed after all the effort. Especially when you dominated the game and deserved to win. But that's how it is sometimes in life, in sport. I've always said: soccer within these 30 minutes that we play here. That somehow reflects life. Sometimes you're lucky, sometimes you're unlucky. Today we were unlucky. Shortly after the game, something happened that changed Ali's life and that of his family. They didn't want to tell me. I just happened to get a message from a good friend who also plays for the FCO, saying: Yes, I wish you lots of strength and everything. It's really too bad what happened. He wrote me a message that more or less said it. And I know exactly what I wrote to him: What's wrong? Why? And he said: What? You don't know about it? And I said: What don't I know about? And then he wrote that my cousin had caused a traffic accident. It was a moment of shock, I think that's how I would describe it. We were sitting there, it was just before the closing ceremonies in France. And then this news came and yes, you don't really know what to do or say then. I thought briefly, do I leave now? But actually, what can I change? What can I do? I just knew she was in a coma. And then we decided that it would be wiser if I just came on Sunday morning, as originally planned. But I wouldn't go home, I’d go straight to the hospital. Ali spent every day in the hospital for the following few weeks. He wanted to be there for his cousin, Aleyna. But Ali still had one athletic goal for the season: Mid-September in Cologne last match day of the German Blind Football League. Teams Sport-Freunde Blau-Gelb Blista Marburg and FC St. Pauli are tied. With a win against Borussia Dortmund, Marburg would almost certainly be German champions. I knew that I wanted to somehow shape the game and be present. I kind of dreamed that after the World Cup. I thought, yes, if I’m given the responsibility and the opportunity, I want to repay that. That's what I had in mind, becoming champion was my goal. I also dreamed about it, well maybe not dreamed, but it was a daydream where I thought if I could visualize the game, then I would do it like this and like that. It's even better that it turned out exactly like that. And we're happy to repeat it: Marburg's number 10 making 1 to 0, Alican Pektas! Final score: 1 to 0 for Marburg. Now, as long as St. Pauli in the brown jerseys don’t win 4 to 0 against Stuttgart in the red jerseys, Marburg will be champions. But St. Pauli seems hungry: 1 to 0. But Stuttgart matches them. And even turns the game around, making the score two to 1. The final tally. Marburg are German champions. A family reunion in Ober-Ramstadt. An important occasion for Ali and his relatives. They get together as often as they can. For example, on birthdays. Ali can't always be there because of soccer. But today he has to: He’s the one being celebrated. Ali's cousin Aleyna is also there. She is feeling better again three months after her serious car accident. I can only describe it as relief. For me, it was just a relief and also just slowly returning to normal. We've become closer, but now I think we can just enjoy what's coming. Because I think we've achieved something really good now, especially her but also us. Then I think enjoying will slowly return. We may be cousins, but we've actually grown up more like siblings. Ali recharges his batteries with his family. His life is often so stressful. But here, there’s laughter. Gell, Ali Can. How did you always paint Özge's face? She was always teased by Özge Thanks for telling everyone. Yes, we always painted it at night, she didn't think that was so funny. A childhood full of joy that's what made Ali strong. He is the family's favorite. Even though he was sometimes quite cheeky as a child, as his cousin Talya recalls. One of the points where I never noticed the difference between the two of us was when we played soccer. So as a child, that doesn’t matter much. Yes. But never when I was playing soccer, because you often kicked the ball at me and I knew you did it on purpose. I knew you really meant it. That could be true, yes. My grandpa is definitely our biggest fan. He always collects all the newspaper articles. He still has all of them. It is this support and love that make Ali who he is. That, along with his ambition and absolute desire to achieve everything he sets out to do. Many people don't realize that he is blind. Even my children have only just learned, or heard and experienced, that he is blind. They said: Huh, how? He plays soccer, mom, he goes to work, he travels by train. He's blind? My children are only 5 and 4, of course it's incomprehensible to them, but, yes, you can't tell because he's just so open. Ali often makes life look easy and playful, no matter how much effort it takes. I'm actually very satisfied. I think I've achieved a lot of what I wanted to achieve. I think that's something that's very difficult to say about yourself. That's why it's something that I really look at with a great deal of pride and say, these are really things that I've worked for, that I've achieved. Especially in terms of sport, where I invest a lot of time. But, as I said, the support from my family, and in all these friendships, which also shape me and make up a large part of my life these are moments that give me satisfaction. For me, this is really where the whole picture just comes together.