Clearly, Jérôme Boateng’s post-OL career is fraught with pitfalls. After leaving the Rhône at the end of his contract with Les Gones last summer, the German central defender had put his professional career on second priority due to a legal case concerning him – a new trial will take place, continued for assault, injury and insults against his ex-partner, facts dating back to 2018. After training several times under the leadership of Thomas Tuchel at Bayern Munich, who ultimately decided not to hire him as announced in a press release published at the beginning of October, another Bundesliga club was ready to sign the 2014 world champion: the promoted Heidenheim. However, the club’s coach, Frank Schmidt, did not understand the rumors linking the 35-year-old to the current 13th in the championship across the Rhine.
“For my part, I can say that I was very surprised by what I read, explains the 49-year-old coach in comments collected by Sky Sports Germany. We have a DNA with hungry young players that we train and develop. He wouldn’t quite fit into this context.” Comments which did not take long to make the agent of the former German international (76 caps, 1 goal) react at the microphone of Bild : “We are very surprised by Frank Schmidt’s statements. His sports director requested a meeting – which took place on November 3! Jérôme never gave his word to Heidenheim and at no time expressed his interest in a transfer there. On the contrary, Heidenheim wanted to invite him and courted him. It is insolent and bizarre to reverse the situation as if Heidenheim refused Jérôme.” The message got through.
