Once Leverkusen, always Leverkusen

Most football fans know how it all started with their love for a club. For Kim Falkenberg it was going to the stadium with his father. He was six years old when he went to see the Bundesliga match between Bayer 04 and Werder Bremen in Leverkusen in the middle of the 1990s.

The match, the stadium, names like Rüdiger Vollborn, Christian Wörns, Bernd Schuster and Paulo Sergio, it is clear to Kim: Bayer 04 Leverkusen are his club. What started off as a fan turned into more a few years later.

Training with mum

Falkenberg's football career began in Bergneustadt. He started with the youngest age group. His team was coached by his mother who was actually not particulalry interested in football. "For her, the idea of community and fun for children came first. My father taught her a couple of drills," recalled Falkenberg. It worked really well.

The Bergneustadt lads made a name for themselves in the region. The small but fast Kim was spotted by Bayer 04 scouts at an indoor tournament. The fair-haired lad scored goal after goal as a striker. His parents wanted to wait until he moved up to the grammar school. When that was sorted out, Falkenberg was able to join the Bayer 04 U12s in 2000.

from striker to the opposite

The step up from the shale pitch of his local team to the new facilities at the Kurtekotten Performance Centre was enormous: "You had great opportunities there and it felt special. As U12s we were able to watch and celebrate at the U19 and U17 games as if we are on the pitch ourselves."

And there were also a number of changes on the pitch. Coach Jörg Bittner turned the striker into a defensive midfielder. Or as Falkenberg himself says with a laugh: "Out of a goalscorer came one of the least prolific players there has ever been." But more about that later. At the start there was only Bayer 04 for the young Kim. Training, matches and tournaments, again and again watching the 'big' U19 and U17 teams in action or, of course, getting behind the first team at the BayArena. "I couldn't have had a better time as a teenager," he says today.

As U19 champion in the second division

That was crowned with the German championship with the U19s in 2007. Kim Falkenberg started as a central defender in front of a packed BayArena with the match ending in a 2-1 victory after extra time against Bayern Munich: "Your name is there on the shirt, an incredible moment." A small taster of what could come. Falkenberg was already training with the Bayer 04 U23s under Ulf Kirsten, he joined the senior squad at a training camp and head coach Michael Skibbe included him in the Bundesliga squad once.

But his competition on the right side of the fence was Gonzalo Castro and Clemens Fritz. In spite of the U19 title and 20 international caps for the German youth teams from the U15s up, it is clear to Falkenberg: There was nothing doing at Leverkusen at the moment. "Leaving was difficult. But I was always able to assess the situation really well myself and I knew the next step had to come," he said.

RAPID REUNION

The young defender joined second division Rot-Weiß Oberhausen. The opposition in his first team debut: Bayer 04 Leverkusen of course. The first round of the DFB Cup the time between RWO and the Werkself. "It was crazy. A few weeks before we were training together and then you're standing alongside Castro, Kießling and Renato Augusto in the players tunnel," remembers Falkenberg. Oberhausen competed well with Bayer 04 and only lost 3-2 after extra time.

That is the last contact with Leverkusen for the time being. But Falkenberg had an impressive match. He gets off to a flying start at Oberhausen and clocks up 29 second division appearances in his first season and scores his first goal as a professional player in the 2-0 win against FSV Frankfurt. The then 20-year-old obviously did not know it would be his last."

big circle around Leverkusen

Oberhausen marked the start of a ten-year journey as a professional in a big circle around Leverkusen. From RWO he moved on to Greuther Fürth where Falkenberg reached the quarter-finals of the DFB Cup in 2010. From there the next stop was Aachen, then Sandhausen, Saarbrücken and finally VfL Osnabrück. After 200 professional matches and several injuries, Falkenberg was playing in the third division in 2014.

He followed the Werkself the whole time – as a fan: "It actually always remained the same and it will continue to be the same." The end of Stefan Reinartz' career revived contact with Leverkusen in 2016. At a small party, Falkenberg met former teammates and Jonas Boldt who was then the sporting manager. "I talked to Jonas about me studying sports business and I said I had to do a placement," explained Falkenberg. Boldt made the offer to do that in the Bayer 04 scouting section.

addcited to football matches

"I'd never even thought of something like that," admitted Falkenberg. And that was the impulse for his return. After the first video sessions it was clear to him: "That's exactly the thing for me. I was addicted straightaway." Falkenberg continued to play football in Osnabrück and he also did scouting missions in different areas for Bayer 04. At the end of 2017, it was clear after a torn cruciate that his playing days were over and Bayer 04 were at the stage of restructuring their scouting department.

Falkenberg was ‘head scout for top talents’ for the summer of 2018. Up to then he had watched hundreds of games and players and was still fascinated: "Watching football fully focussed, describing players, describing team tactics and always with the idea in the back of your head: What would suit Bayer 04 Leverkusen? That's incredible fun."

QUICK NEXT STEP

It only took a year for the next step to happen. In 2019, at the age of 31, Kim Falkenberg becomes head scout for the Werkself. When the post became available, his ideas convinced sporting director Simon Rolfes and Tim Steidten, head of scouting and squad planning. Falkenberg was no longer circling around Leverkusen and it was now the centre of his life. A wife, two children, a house plus Bayer 04 again and again – that's what his life looks like.

Regardless of whether it's about sports or professional development, there is no better place for Falkenberg: "You have all the opportunities here to express yourself and to develop because everybody does everything for the club." Falkenberg's Leverkusen story as a player, member of staff and fan continues. And the next generation with Bayer 04 in their blood is already in sight. He has already taken his children to the stadium in Leverkusen.

‘From Kurtekotten to professional football’ – part V: Jonas Meffert

‘From Kurtekotten to professional football’ – part IV: Fabian Giefer

‘From Kurtekotten to professional football’– part III: Stefan Reinartz

‘From Kurtekotten to professional football’ – part II: Erik Zenga

‘From Kurtekotten to professional football’ – part I: Gonzalo Castro