Германы шигшээ багийн Дэлхийн аваргын нээлтийн тоглолтын өмнөх хэвлэлийн бага хурлын үеэр спортын сэтгүүлч Хартмут Шерзерийн 88 насны ойг тэмдэглэж, түүний 17 дахь удаагийн Дэлхийн аваргын тэмцээнийг сурвалжлах түүхэн замналыг хүндэтгэн угтлаа. 1962 оноос хойш бүх тэмцээнийг алгасалгүй сурвалжилсан тэрээр тухайн үед Герман-Кюрасаогийн тоглолтын өмнө шигшээ багийн дасгалжуулагч асан Юлиан Нагельсманнаас баяр хүргэлт хүлээн авсан юм.
Шерзер 1962 оны Чилид болсон анхны тэмцээнийхээ тухай дурсахдаа, тухайн үед Франкфуртаас Сантьяго хүрэх нислэгийн зардал нь “Фольксваген” автомашины үнэтэй тэнцүү байсныг онцлов. Тэрээр 1970 оны Итали-Баруун Германы хагас шигшээ тоглолтыг өөрийн үзсэн хамгийн шилдэг тоглолт хэмээн нэрлэж, Пелег хамгийн шилдэг тоглогчоор тодруулсан юм.
Өнөөдөр тэрээр орчин үеийн технологийн хэрэгслүүдээс илүүтэй диктофон ашиглан ажлаа гүйцэтгэдэг хэвээр байна. Хэдийгээр Герман улс Дэлхийн аваргын тэмцээнээс эрт хасагдсан ч тэрээр тэмцээний талбарт идэвхтэй ажиллаж, тоглогчдоос ярилцлага авахын тулд ФИФА-гийн ажилтнуудтай зөвшилцөн, ажлын байраа өөрчлөх хүртэл хичээл зүтгэл гаргасаар байна.
Түүний 60 шахам жилийн спортын сэтгүүл зүйн замналд 34 удаагийн “Тур де Франс”, 21 удаагийн Олимпын наадам, мөн Мухаммед Али болон Жорж Форман нарын алдарт тулаанууд багтдаг. ФИФА-гаас түүний энэхүү онцгой амжилтыг үнэлж, Дэлхийн аваргын цомын бяцхан хувийг гардуулан хүндэтгэл үзүүлсэн билээ.
Дэлгэрэнгүй эх сурвалжийг харах
Эх сурвалжийг нээх ↓
Something unusual happened in the press conference to preview Germany’s opening game of this World Cup, against Curacao.
Before any questions were taken, the media officer gestured to a man sitting in the front row. This was Hartmut Scherzer. This was his 88th birthday. This was the start of his 17th World Cup (seventeen!). A journalist, he has covered every edition of the tournament since 1962.
He received a round of applause, and later congratulations and a hug from Julian Nagelsmann, the Germany head coach who has since resigned after their early exit.
If your instinct is to go all Roy Keane about this and think this is a lot of fuss for someone just doing their job, and a very privileged one at that, consider your own levels of energy, or the cracking sounds that come from your ankle when you get out of an armchair, and think about whether you would still have the enthusiasm to fly nearly 6,000 miles (nearly 10,000km) from Frankfurt to Houston in your ninth decade.
After a quick chat with a smiling Nagelsmann, who advised him to have a celebratory beer, Scherzer returned to another round of congratulations from the other journalists present. It looked at some points like this well-meaning adulation was getting in the way of him actually doing his job: it took him probably 20 minutes to travel from his seat at the front of the press room to the exit, a distance of maybe 20 yards, as he negotiated a gauntlet of hugs from friends and handshakes from strangers.
“It was very emotional,” says Scherzer the next day, shortly before kick-off against Curacao at Houston’s NRG Stadium. “I didn’t expect it. I felt honoured. When I spoke to Nagelsmann, I told him, ‘You will be, from Sepp Herberger, the 10th coach I have seen with Germany. I hope you will be the fourth, after Helmut Schon, Franz Beckenbauer and Jogi Low, to win the World Cup’.”
Scherzer’s first World Cup was in 1962, played in Chile. “I was very young,” he says. “It was very exciting. I worked for an American news agency: United Press International. That was the only way I could go, as a very young guy from Frankfurt, to the World Cup. At that time, a flight from Frankfurt to Santiago cost the same as a Volkswagen.”
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West Germany were eliminated at the quarter-final stage of that tournament, beaten 1-0 by Yugoslavia. So, as a young European at a time when world travel was much more difficult than now, Scherzer took advantage of being in South America.
“When the final was going on in Chile, I was already in Peru — I went to Machu Picchu,” he recalls. “I travelled home via New York.”
One way of putting his longevity into perspective, and to illustrate how extraordinary it is that he is still doing this job, is that only one member of the West Germany squad from that 1962 World Cup is still with us.
Scherzer, a freelancer and author these days, arrives with a notebook and a tape dictaphone. No laptop, no camera, no bag full of charging cables and the other things journalists today often carry around with them. “This is the way I take interviews,” he says, waggling the dictaphone. “I still do it this way. At my age, it’s difficult to get used to new things.”
He does have an Instagram account, and he has a smartphone, but you get the impression that it actually causes more problems than it solves. The Athletic catches him just after a lengthy and frustrating-looking conversation with a FIFA employee about switching the post-match pass he has been granted from the manager’s press conference to the mixed zone, where the players will be. He wants to speak to Nathaniel Brown, the German left-back, who is from his home city of Frankfurt. Later, he is first in line to ask Brown a question.
Before Germany’s last group game against Ecuador in New Jersey, FIFA awarded Scherzer a small replica of the World Cup trophy as recognition of his extraordinary career and milestone. To be frank, it looked a bit like a keyring they had boosted from one of the merchandise stalls at MetLife Stadium, but he seemed to accept it in the right spirit.
Congratulations to German media member Hartmut Scherzer on attending his 17th @FIFAWorldCup.
Ahead of Germany vs Ecuador at NYNJ Stadium, FIFA Media Relations presented Mr. Scherzer with a mini FIFA World Cup Trophy in recognition of this remarkable milestone. 🏆👏 pic.twitter.com/IcozFLdI2Q
— FIFA Media (@fifamedia) June 25, 2026
As well as football, Scherzer’s other passions are cycling and boxing. He says he has covered the Tour de France 34 times. He has also been at 21 Olympic Games, winter and summer.
As we sit in the press room of NRG Stadium, he jabs a thumb towards the window: he was in this city 59 years ago at the Astrodome, the now-defunct legendary venue just across the street, where he witnessed Muhammad Ali fight Ernie Terrell, all 15 rounds. He was at the Rumble in the Jungle, when Ali beat George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire (DR Congo today) in 1974. Also the Thrilla in Manila, when Ali met Joe Frazier in the Philippines a year later.
He was there when West Germany won the World Cup on home soil in 1974, and can recall seeing the players throw head coach Schon into a swimming pool as they celebrated. He was there for the ‘Sommermachen’ in 2006, when hosts Germany didn’t win the World Cup, but created a national feeling of optimism and togetherness after unexpectedly reaching the semi-finals. And he was there when they won it again, in Brazil in 2014.
He nominates the ‘match of the century’ — the semi-final between West Germany and Italy in 1970 (1-1 after 90 minutes, the Italians won 3-2 after extra time) — as the best game he has been to. “The drama of it… it was the most exciting match I’ve seen in all my World Cups. The atmosphere in Mexico — the whole thing, in my memory, is the most wonderful and exciting of all the World Cups in my life.”
And with that in mind, his choice of favourite player isn’t a huge surprise. “Pele. No doubt about it. I met him at the start of my career. I was told Pele would be landing at Frankfurt airport. I was told I had to go and find him. I met him and interviewed him there, and I also met him at the farewell game in New York for Franz Beckenbauer.”
With that, he takes his seat in the press box, ready for his 17th World Cup.
Will this be his last? Apparently, people have been telling him that for three or four editions now, so who knows about 2030?
What a life.
