Mad dog

In many respects, Patrick Ebert is a symbol of just how quaintly provincial German football can sometimes be.

In a world where pro athletes regular get in trouble for carrying firearms, beating up people in bars and forcing women to have sex with them, Ebert made negative headlines by kicking the side mirrors off of parked cars in a bit of late-night drunken rowdyism.

That was in 2009. At the age of 22, poor Patty was branded a menace to society. But he was really a threat to his own career most of all.

A member of the German Under-21 team that won the European Championship in 2009, Ebert by his own admission partook a little too frequently of Berlin's famous nightlife.

He lost his place in Hertha's starting line-up. Berlin fans began to speak of "the Ebert corner" to describe a ball struck low and not particularly hard at the defender guarding the near post.

As Hertha descended into chaos and the second division in the 2009-10 season, Ebert was struggling even to get into the squad. Club bosses shopped him around but there were no takers.

Now after a year of re-education and rehabilitation in division two, Ebert is back in the top flight with Hertha and a revised take on life.

"I don't need parties any more," Ebert told Deutsche Welle. "I've been to just about every kind there is in Berlin - or most of them anyway. Of course, I go out sometimes, but other things are more important in my life."

Ebert's crosses and corners have improved drastically since his new-found relative sobriety, and his work rate has been beyond reproach, as Hertha have collected a respectable nine points from six matches.

But clean living is perhaps not the only factor in the 24-year-old's mid-career revival.

Rough background

A single spoken sentence suffices to identify Ebert's roots: he speaks the lower-class patois of rough-and-tumble Berlin. Although he was born in Potsdam, he grew up in Berlin's immigrant-heavy Kreuzberg district and was socialized at Hertha's youth academy, together with Kevin-Prince and Jerome Boateng, Ashkan Dejagah, Sejad Salihovic and Anis Ben-Hatira.

"Even at the age of 10, we were together morning, noon and night," Ebert reminisces. "We neglected school, which didn't make our parents happy. All we wanted to do was play football. But if we hadn't, maybe we wouldn't be where we are today."

But Ebert likely picked up some bad habits as well, particularly from Kevin-Prince Boateng, his partner-in-crime in what became known as the "car-mirror affair."

The elder Boateng's own career went through a trough similar to Ebert's, but his prodigious skills eventually took him to AC Milan. Other members of Ebert's vintage also went on to bigger clubs, but the midfielder now seems happy with his lot as a key performer for his hometown club.

"My goal is just to stay healthy and play a good season with Hertha," Ebert says. "I'm really happy I have a chance to play for this club."

Ebert as model citizen - that's the line team and player are pushing. But is that all there is to the story?

A guiding hand

It's striking in interviews how seldom Ebert makes eye contact with his interlocutor. He tends to mumble his answers in short, aggressive spurts, as though he's actually addressing some sort of demon bubbling within.

And although he says he's learned from past mistakes, he also maintains that a bit of madness is key to how he plays.

"On the pitch my performance is perhaps down to the fact that I'm a bit crazy," Ebert says. "Anyone who knows me…knows that I treat my fellow human beings well and try to be nice to everyone who's nice to me. But if you treat me badly, I'll do the same to you. That's just human. I won't be messed with."

Ebert seems to have found the perfect mentor and role model in coach Markus Babbel. The picture of calm on the sidelines, the former Bayern and Liverpool stand-out is in his private life a fan of tattoos, heavy metal and, on appropriate occasions, a glass or three of wheat beer.

Meanwhile, Ebert's past has made him a favourite of the motley crew that are Hertha's ultras. They've even composed a song in his honor: "Patrick Ebert, you old rowdy/you kick mirrors off/scratch paint/and knock over scooters."

But as long as the midfielder continues to channel his destructive impulses into intensity on the pitch, no one at Hertha has a problem with Patrick Ebert.

Patrick Ebert was interviewed by Constantin Strüve for DW-TV's Bundesliga Kick Off! The program airs on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Author: Jefferson Chase
Editor: Matt Hermann