Teufelskicker (2010)

Moritz loves soccer more than anything in the world, and his club, SV Hulstorf, whose youth team he plays for and which his father coaches, is everything to him. In the cup final of the Rhein-Litte Tournament, a 16-team knockout competition, against VfB Epplaken, he dreams of playing a match in a huge stadium with soccer stars. Lost in his daydream, he misses a final chance to send his team into extra time, and they lose 2–1. After the match, almost the whole team is angry with him, especially his friend Felix. When Moritz’s mother comes to pick him and his father up after the game, it ends in a scene: she has often promised to attend one of his games, but always arrives late or not at all because she organizes weddings. Moritz and his mother find his father in the coaches’ room, kissing the club secretary. Moritz’s mother immediately moves out of their home and takes her son to live with her father, Rudi, in Epplaken, where she has hardly visited before. Rudi, who has become rather grumpy over the years, is not especially pleased to see them. Moritz, in particular, is devastated: he no longer has a team and can’t play the game he loves; he has to attend a new school full of strangers; and he is staying at Grandpa Rudi’s in his mother’s former childhood bedroom. Grandpa Rudi tries to get Moritz accepted by the town’s only club, VfB Epplaken, coached by Rothkirch. It is the very team whose captain and goalkeeper, Mark, was injured on the nose by Moritz’s wayward shot in the final and now has to wear a cast on his nose. The players only pelt Moritz with balls, and there is no question of admitting him. At school, Moritz makes new friends who also have soccer talent. He runs into Mark and his teammates there, too, and they dislike Moritz’s friends as well. Moritz promptly starts a team with Mehmet, Catrina, Niko, and Enes. They find a home ground in the old Peter-Neuenfels Stadium, which has become badly overgrown, making Moritz’s friends rather skeptical. While clearing it up, they find the old stadium sign, but some of its letters fall off. In the end, it reads “Devil’s Stadium.” To enter the new tournament, they recruit the Rooftop Kids, led by Alex, who also want to play soccer as a team. Moritz’s friends, especially Mehmet, are not keen on the idea at first, but soon warm to them. Enes reluctantly has to take the position of manager, since only 11 players are needed on the field. Inspired by the stadium’s new name, the team calls itself the Teufelskicker, and Moritz registers it for the new tournament at town hall. Since registration requires a coach who can also fill out the forms, Moritz secretly lists Grandpa Rudi as the coach and says that he is in bed with an illness called ENES. Enes is messing around with the others outside the town hall window, and Moritz accidentally gives the illness his name. To qualify for the tournament, the Teufelskicker have to play two matches. In the first, Moritz’s team puts in a dismal performance and is thrashed 12–0 by reigning cup holders VfB Epplaken. Afterward, the team also has to accept that their old stadium will be demolished to make way for a new hotel. Meanwhile, Moritz’s father tries to win his wife back with the help of his friend Flo, but she will not give in and is becoming disheartened by rejection after rejection as she looks for a new job. The Teufelskicker still have problems: Catrina is initially unhappy that they are so focused on beating Mark and the VfB. Moritz first suspects that she has a crush on Mark, but it turns out that Mark is her new stepbrother and Rothkirch, whom her mother married, is her stepfather. Moritz finds a solution to the problem of where to play: Grandpa Rudi works as a night watchman at a department store, employed by Rothkirch. Rudi and Rothkirch even used to play on the same team, though Rudi wants nothing more to do with that. Since the department store is also suitable for soccer practice and Rudi often nods off during his shift, Moritz steals Rudi’s spare access card and sneaks into the store with his team while Rudi is at his post. They are quickly discovered. Grandpa Rudi is initially angry, but then, having learned about his role as coach, takes it on of his own accord, to everyone’s surprise. The Teufelskicker train in the department store at night and win their second qualifying match 1–0 against FC Wolperat, the worst team in the region. As a reward for the match, Grandpa Rudi provides them with jerseys, which they wear from then on. The team does well in the tournament, winning their round-of-16 match 1–0 against TuS Keppel and their quarter-final 3–2 against BV Brakem. In the semi-final, they face VfB again. Before the match, Rothkirch fires Grandpa Rudi, supposedly so Rudi will have more time for his team. The two teams have already faced each other in the department store, where they compete in a game of keep-away for the ball Moritz’s father brought him. The Teufelskicker keep possession of the ball for the agreed amount of time, so Moritz gets to keep it. Meanwhile, the teams become a topic of conversation because their game spills out onto the street in front of the department store. Afterward, Enes causes a scene: he praises Alex’s talent but also asks him about an old story going around—why he killed his little brother. Alex runs off. Moritz manages to talk to him, and Alex explains that he had to go to a soccer match—he was playing for VfB—and left his little brother, whom he was supposed to look after, alone in the apartment. When he came back, the police were outside the building, and his brother had died from an electric shock. It was a fatal accident; Alex did not kill him. Moritz reassures him, but Alex stops playing for the Teufelskicker for the time being. Grandpa Rudi soon hears the news, too, and is not pleased shortly before the semi-final. Enes has to fill in for Alex. The Teufelskicker lose the semi-final 1–0, mainly because Rothkirch bribed the referee beforehand to prevent his VfB from possibly losing. The referee then calls almost every decision against the Teufelskicker. As the team parts ways, dejected, things are becoming increasingly bleak for Moritz’s mother: she still cannot find a job, still does not want to see her husband, and Moritz takes out his frustration with the whole situation on her. Meanwhile, Mrs. Rothkirch is convinced that her daughter is good at soccer. When Catrina is left bored by herself at a table during a family gathering after the team has broken up, Mrs. Rothkirch tries to persuade her husband to take Catrina into his club, but Rothkirch firmly refuses. That is the last straw for Mrs. Rothkirch: she calls the association to report her husband’s bribery and even threatens him with divorce. The news prompts Moritz’s father to make one last attempt to get his wife back. Late that evening, he shouts into the house from outside that Rothkirch bribed the referee, so Moritz’s team is in the final, and that if she sees a future for the two of them, she should come to the big final. Otherwise, he says, he will take care of the divorce. In the middle of the night, Moritz rounds up his team. He first goes to Catrina’s, where Mark is trying to stop her from climbing out the window. Mark is no longer wearing his nose cast and wants to fight Moritz, who punches him on the nose, so Mark has to wear a nose cast again. Grandpa Rudi creates another problem: he gets drunk at a pub that night and is hit by a vehicle on his way home, ending up in the hospital. The next morning, on the day of the final, the Teufelskicker first meet Moritz’s mother there. Moritz apologizes to her for his outburst the night before. Grandpa Rudi now also learns that his team is in the final. But since he cannot travel to Hulstorf as their coach, Moritz’s mother has to take over. There, she meets her husband, who is initially relieved but also somewhat shocked when he hears that she is taking on the coaching role. Before the match, Alex reappears and, encouraged by his father, joins the team again. Grandpa Rudi and Moritz’s mother stay connected by phone, so she can pass along Rudi’s instructions. First, he decides that, for the first time in the team’s history, Moritz will be captain. As the first half progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that Moritz’s mother knows nothing about soccer. She passes on some of the instructions incorrectly, and the phone connection is not very good either. At halftime, the Teufelskicker are trailing 2–0. After the break, Moritz’s mother gives the right advice in the form of cooking instructions, which Moritz has to translate for his team. The referee and Moritz’s father are somewhat bewildered by the cooking terms being used for soccer. But in the end, the Teufelskicker manage to turn the game around, winning 3–2 and taking both the tournament and the cup. They celebrate their victory. The junior and senior Rothkirchs, who have also been watching, are anything but pleased, while Mrs. Rothkirch is delighted for her daughter. Moritz and Felix, who fell out at the beginning, become friends again. Moritz’s parents make up, and the family is happy again. Catrina thanks Moritz, and at the end Enes discovers that his name has caught on as the name of an illness.