No dis­tance is too far

In part four of the series ‘From Kurtekotten to professional football’ we present the path of Fabian Giefer from youth team goalkeeper to the Bayer 04 first team. It all started quite a long way from Leverkusen.

Adenau. Freiling. Lommersdorf. Anyone looking for Fabian Giefer’s place of birth, childhood home and first youth team will have to look some one hundred kilometres south of Leverkusen. In 2002 in that area of the Eifel, Leverkusen scouts discovered the tall youngster who clearly enjoyed playing in goal.

As the youngest of four children, Fabian was the only one to emulate his father. He played between the sticks in the ninth tier of German football. “It was great fun from the start and I don’t know how many times and how many pairs of trousers my mum had to patch up during that time,” Giefer recalls today with a smile.

a letter starts the ball rolling

When he is 12 years old, a letter arrives at his house in the village of Freiling with a population of 800. “Not from his favourite team but from a Bundesliga club,” baffling his mother. Bayer 04 Leverkusen is on the envelope and it doesn’t take Fabian long to consider the invitation to attend a trial: “Leverkusen were already a great club for youth development back then.”

But there were second thoughts in the Giefer family after the trial proved to be a success. Travelling the 90 kilometres each way to Leverkusen four or five times a week? And school? How does that work? “We then decided to wait a bit,” Giefer explains. But it happens a year later. With the move to the U15s, Fabian risks joining Leverkusen.

Homework on the Autobahn

Logistical help came from Dirk Hartmann who lived in Bitburg and was a youth coach at Leverkusen at the time. It was off to Leverkusen twice a week with his son Tim and Oliver Petersch in the car. The Giefers took responsibility for the two other trips. “The time my parents invested was exceptional. I’m very grateful to them for that,” he says today.

To make the long journey work, the young keeper often did his homework in the car. School, meal, travel, training, back home to bed. That was Giefer’s daily routine for three years. Nearly everything took second place to football. Except school. “It was always clear to me that I wanted to do my Abitur,” says Giefer.

boost through professional Training

Fabian gets off to a great start with the Werkself youth set-up under Dieter Gans, the goalkeeping coach at the time: “There was an incredible boost under the professional conditions at the Performance Centre.” First choice goalkeeper at Leverkusen, Middle Rhine team, Germany youth team. In just over a year, Giefer is flying high raising the question in the U17s of how to improve the conditions even further.

Roman Klossek comes into the picture at this point. Today’s commercial head of the Performance Centre was living in the Leverkusen suburbs with his young family at the time and he decided to join the host family programme that had been running for a number of years at Bayer 04.

New feeling as 'big brother'

Even though Fabian’s mother, above all, initially needed to be persuaded, the keeper took the next step and moved into the granny flat at the Klosseks: “It was a great decision for me. This route sorted out a lot of things on the football side.” The tall teenager quickly became a big brother for the Mara and Julia, the Klossek’s young daughters.

The household also managed to cope with the enormous appetite of the growing, two-metre tall lad, Klossek recalls. In the young host father Roman, Giefer also discovers as he puts it, “a very good friend, almost a big brother who always had the right sense what was appropriate in somewhat tricky situations.” For example, when it was about the right balance between school, football and fancy ideas.

oppponent on the football table

And, of course, Klossek is the perfect opponent on the football table in Fabian’s room. The teenager didn’t stand a chance against the host when he moved in. When he left the Klossek’s three years later, now with his Abitur and as a first-team player, he didn’t give his host a chance. “Fabian was always ambitious and determined,” Klossek remembers.

That obviously did not only apply to the football table. It was the same on the real football pitch. Giefer won the Germany U19 championship with the Leverkusen U19s in 2007 when he was still with the U17s. He was in goal a year later for the victory in the DFB Youth Cup. He made his senior debut in the Bundesliga a year later on 6 November. At just 19 years of age.

contact point Leverkusen

That is very young for a goalkeeper. But Bayer 04 had good previous experience with a young keeper in René Adler. He got injured in the home game against Eintracht Frankfurt. Coach Jupp Heynckes had confidence in Giefer. He put a fatherly arm around the youth keeper and said: “You can do it. I’m not worried at all.” The Werkself win 4-0. The journey to professional football has been completed.

Even though the now 31-year-old has landed up at Würzburg via Fortuna Düsseldorf, Schalke 04 and FC Augsburg - there have been and still are contacts at Leverkusen. When he played for Düsseldorf against Leverkusen at the BayArena in November 2012, he held the hands of his two “host sisters” when he came onto the pitch.

The house in Leverkusen has long been planned as a place to visit. “If you put football ahead of everything else and you’re not local then a host family is absolutely a logical step,” says Giefer in assessing his time back then. From Freiling to Leverkusen. The long distance was worth it.

‘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