“Litti makes theater”: Pierre Littbarski performs his footballing life in Cologne

The Stollwerck community center in Cologne’s Severinsviertel, formerly a Prussian provisions warehouse, now a multi-purpose event location, offers a lot this evening. A huge party is being celebrated downstairs, and on one of the upper floors WDR is hosting a discussion about Cologne’s Olympic bid. In between, on the first floor, Pierre Littbarski, 1990 soccer world champion, Cologne idol from Berlin, thoroughbred entertainer, lets two women recruited from the audience drag him across the stage in a kimono. They recreate a blessing ceremony in a Japanese temple. At the end, Litti, known in the J-League as an “indestructible German”, whose legs have become numb from all the sitting cross-legged, is unceremoniously dumped on the floor by his wife and mother-in-law.