Next Saturday (August 19) 1. FC Heidenheim will be playing their first game as a first division team away from Wolfsburg. Frank Schmidt (49) has been loyal to the promoted team as head coach since 2007. In an interview with the trade journal “Kicker”, he looks much further ahead than just his coming season (number 17) as Heidenheim coach. Apparently he already has a precise plan of how his life should look like when he is no longer in the service of King Football.
“One of my best friends is half a barista, and I love tapas, we want to bring that together at some point, the place is still open. If it’s up to me, more on the beach,” said the 49-year-old, who immediately emphasized: ” The time for this step is still far away.” In any case, he was determined not to “be a coach until retirement age”. Rather, sooner or later he wants to “experience another facet of life”.
In the fast-moving football business, it can always happen that “the ripcord” is pulled if there is no success, Schmidt knows. Same with him. However, he plans to fulfill his working paper, which is still valid until 2027, “if I have my way”. Treat yourself to your own tapas bar for your 20th anniversary as a Heidenheim coach? That would be something.
As is well known, many a well-known name decided while still an active footballer to build up another mainstay in the restaurant sector and/or nightlife. Notorious, for example, is the Mönchengladbach disco “Lover’s Lane”, which Günter Netzer (78) opened there in the 1970s. In the middle of the corona pandemic, in December 2020, the report also made the rounds that today’s Dortmund star Niklas Süle (27) wanted to open his own bar. Together with his brother, the “Forty Five” was created in their Hessian hometown of Mörfelden-Walldorf.
