1) A true prophet
So once again I had a very bad time. All the people in the world seemed to know how the games were going to turn out. This information was not available to me. Self-doubt gnawed at me. My partner at the time then had an idea, as he told me during a phone call: he had put himself in a trance and in this way determined how the games would turn out that evening. He was of the opinion that the others would do the same. He would now have the system to win. There were seven games, European Cup. No special match day. I secretly took a pen and wrote it down. He said: Galatasaray X (i.e. draw), Inter Milan 1, ZSKA Moscow lose, the 2, Arsenal X and so on. We both hung up with a grin. But I, in my guile, immediately picked up the phone again and called a bookmaker. I risked 40 DM on these 7 tips. You know how it turned out? All seven came true and I won DM 2,000. Admittedly, I’m sneaky, but also not in a way that I wouldn’t have told my partner. But of course he was not involved in such a stupid bet, unlike our other bets. Why not? That can be determined very easily: If I had lost the bet and told him the next day that he owed me 20 DM because of such a bet, he would have flown me the coop. Apart from that, the bets we made together were of a different order of magnitude, much higher. The DM 40 was just a joke.
What consequences would you draw from that now? For us it was the following: The next match day I asked him again if he had gone into a trance again and could give me the results? He said no. Besides, he said, this time it would cost something, I would have to pay to use his undoubtedly extraordinary abilities. We never did it again. And that is real and true discipline. You need that as a player. I can imagine that we have achieved uniqueness with this overall performance after all. And what else can you strive for here?
