Boateng is the bad boy of Berlin, but he’s cementing his legacy at Hertha

BERLIN — “Without being arrogant, the difference was that I was special,” Kevin-Prince Boateng tells ESPN. “There aren’t many players like me; they come once every 10 years.”

The 35-year-old attacking midfielder sits in a conference room at the headquarters of Hertha Berlin. Thick gold chains hang around his neck. He leans back in his chair and sips his cappuccino before speaking.

Prince, as everyone who walks these halls refers to him, is still the same self-confident man who once made many enemies in many dressing rooms and beyond, but he is far more beloved these days. He seems at ease with himself and the way his career has unfolded, a career in which he has played for 13 different clubs in five countries.

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It all started, and will eventually end, in Berlin with Hertha.

Boateng joined the club as a 7-year-old while growing up in one of the city’s poorest neighbourhoods. A local newspaper once coined the phrase “Wedding gen” to describe the mentality of Boateng and his peers from the boroughs of Wedding, located in the western part of the booming city. Wedding is poor, neglected and run-down, yet full of dreams. It was there, and in nearby districts like Gesundbrunnen, that Prince and his half-brother Jerome played and practices the game in football cages as kids.

“We came from the streets,” Boateng remembers. Despite the presence of Jerome and others, he didn’t necessarily have a feeling of belonging. “My mom had her demons. My dad had his demons. End of story. I was alone. I achieved all this alone. That’s why I became a professional player. I didn’t have anything else. The only alternative was to hang out on the streets. No! I had a gift, I had talent.”

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Hertha helped him foster his talent, particularly his skills as an attacking midfielder. He won the 2003 Under-17 German Championship with Hertha, beating VfB Stuttgart 4-1 in the final. While the majority of his teammates from that time never made it to the Bundesliga, Boateng went on to become a household name with stints at AC Milan, Barcelona and Borussia Dortmund, which he accounts to his extraordinary abilities as well as his attitude.

“I knew I had to kick other people aside to get my spot,” he says. “My teammates said to me: ‘Jeez, Prince, keep your mouth shut!’ But I had to get to the top.” Being a brash youngster made things difficult at Hertha and other clubs throughout the first half of his career, he acknowledges. “Yes, I didn’t always have my emotions under control when I was younger. That was my mistake, I know that now. When someone wasn’t as good a player as I was, I didn’t respect him. That was wrong.”

While regretting that he had possibly too much of a chip on his shoulder in his early years, there was a particular reason for his attitude. His upbringing and the fear of having to go back to Wedding was not an option for him. “When I was 17, I almost got into fights with teammates,” Boateng says of his mindset in those days. “I butted heads with someone like Niko Kovac because I told myself that this was my chance and you had to kill me to rip that away from me.”

While he was seen as the most valuable player coming out of Hertha’s academy in the mid-2000s, Boateng did not stay with the first team for long. He played two Bundesliga seasons before agreeing to a transfer to Tottenham Hotspur in the summer of 2007. In hindsight, he believes that the move to the Premier League came too early, but he also directs some blame at Hertha, where the decision-makers at the time did not convincingly try to keep him.

As he sees it, he felt he was forced to leave his hometown. “This is my city,” he says. “I didn’t think much about money at the time. I wasn’t greedy and didn’t go to Tottenham because of the money.”

What followed was an odyssey, from Tottenham to Dortmund to Portsmouth to Genoa to Milan and then back to the Bundesliga, where he wore the royal blue of Dortmund’s local rivals Schalke 04. The only club that felt somewhat like a second home was Milan, where he played from 2010 to 2013 and again for six months in 2016.

At times, he shared the dressing room with Ronaldinho and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and for once, Boateng was not one of the most gifted players in the squad. Those were the times in which his steadfast self-belief was needed more than ever.

“I went to Milan at age 23, and I knew exactly that I had to do something special, otherwise I wouldn’t play a minute,” he remembers. “I worked a lot more than the others. Day by day. I was the first at the training ground and the last [to leave]. I played alongside Ronaldinho, Ibrahimovic, [Clarence] Seedorf, yet I stepped in front of the mirror and told myself that I was the best. You must act that way.”

Despite the competition in the team, Boateng was not a benchwarmer: he played a respectable 100 matches under Massimiliano Allegri during his three-year stint in the fashion hub, which at times appeared to be Boateng’s escape from Germany; at one point, his home country had fallen out of love with the former protegee after he injured Michael Ballack in a game between Portsmouth and Chelsea in 2010, denying the national team captain a final World Cup appearance at the tournament in South Africa that year.

Boateng, however, believes his relationship with Germany had been difficult from the moment he stepped onto the national stage.

“My relationship with Germany was difficult for a long time. It became difficult from day one because I was a rebel because I spoke my mind,” he argues. “I will always voice my opinion, but, today, it comes across differently. My image in Germany has changed because I showed a different side of me. I shared some of my emotions with the people. They saw me laughing, they saw me crying. They realised I am not just that strong Boateng who will be a tough guy on the field. They now know that I am a real human being.”

Regardless of Boateng’s troubles with the football community in Germany, despite his decision to represent Ghana on the international stage and the many years spent abroad, Berlin has always been his city. He does not own it, but he made some of it his own. The Berliners with migrant backgrounds and from poor neighbourhoods can relate to Boateng: they understand the way he speaks, they understand why he behaves more confidently than others, and they understand where the chip on his shoulder comes from.

Asked about the fact that he’s playing just his fourth season for Hertha’s first team, juxtaposed against his lengthy histories with both the club and the city, Boateng leans forward and gives his view of the concept of time.

“People like to talk about time — one year, two years, 10 years. But life is not about that. It is about emotions, it is about feelings,” he argues. “You can [spend] eight years at a club, but when there aren’t any emotions, then you will be forgotten the day you leave.”

Boateng has not been forgotten by supporters of Milan, Besiktas or Eintracht Frankfurt. Some of Eintracht’s fans believe that the current era, including the Europa League win earlier this year, began with Boateng in 2017. It would be a stretch to say that he is a completely changed man or has become a sort of elder statesman figure; he is by no means the typical aging veteran who hugs opponents and praises the youth. There is still a lot of that fire left in him, and he is often annoyed by what he perceives as apathy among young footballers.

“When you cut [my arm] open here, blood will be flowing. With most of the young guys today, still water would be coming out of them,” Boateng believes. “They don’t have any emotions. They are not angry when they lose. That’s what is missing. Maybe they don’t have to be like us crazy guys back in the day. However, they have to have a mentality that tells them that they cannot lose.”

In moments in which he talks about attitude, his upbringing shines through again. He is reminded of thoughts of having to return to the old neighbourhoods and the sacrifices that were necessary regardless of his talent.

“It depends on your mindset to play at such a high level, whether you really want it,” Boateng says. “Are you ready to conquer your weaknesses? Are you ready to sacrifice everything else? Are you ready to put your family in second place? Or your friends, your girlfriend, your kids, whatever.”

At various points in his career, Boateng was ready to do just that, and circumstances forced him to give his all one more time back in May, when Hertha were fighting for their survival in the Bundesliga. In what could have been Boateng’s final professional game, Hertha edged out a win over Hamburg in the relegation playoffs, avoiding the drop by the slightest of margins. As he had only signed a one-year contract in the summer of 2021, Boateng’s retirement was expected last spring, but he decided to play one more season before hanging up his boots — or burning them, as he describes it.

“I am actually looking forward to burning my boots. I am excited about this season, yet after this one, it is over. Then I am finally in my office, can sit around and speak badly of the players,” he says with a big laugh.

This campaign is labelled as yet another fresh start for Hertha, with a managerial change over the summer (Felix Magath out, Sandro Schwarz in) and a reinvigorated group of players. Schwarz has certainly improved the aesthetics of the Berliners’ football, while the effervescent play of attackers Dodi Lukebakio and Chidera Ejuke has some fans dreaming of better days in the Olympiastadion.

Boateng has become a bit-part player in terms of the time he spends on the field, with him often coming on for the final 10 minutes, but he remains immensely valuable in the dressing room. Club insiders describe him as Schwarz’s primary liaison.

“It was clear when I extended [my contract] that I wouldn’t get as many minutes as I had usually gotten in my career. It has to do with my age. It has to do with how demanding the Bundesliga is. But I know that I am very, very important for the team, for the club,” Boateng states, adding that feeling relevant within the team is most important to him at this stage of his career.

“I try to share knowledge with the boys every day,” he says. “Not just with the 18-year-olds, but even with someone like Lucas Tousart, who is quite experienced himself. It is great that I have gathered so much experience in different countries and have learned about how others, other cultures view and understand football.”

He has left footsteps in different places, while maturing as a player and person, and football has taught Boateng a lot about himself and life in general.

“Perhaps my career had more lows than highs, though I always came back,” he concludes. “And when I was back, then everyone was my friend again. They were all nice to me. However, when I reached a low point, they were gone. It was the same my entire career. When I don’t play right now and I go back to the dressing room, the only message on my phone is from my wife.”

Although he feels like the one standing above everyone else in Berlin football, Boateng does not claim any throne. He is far removed from the young kid in the cages of Wedding and Gesundbrunnen or the young rebel breaking into Hertha’s first team. He doesn’t even hang out in the city’s famous enclave of cafes and restaurants. His only goal is to help manifest positive energy in and around Hertha.

What comes after that?

“My future lies in football,” Boateng says. “That’s what I know, what I understand, what I love. I won’t suddenly become a lawyer. I will stick around in football. What I will be doing exactly has yet to be decided. I will say this, though, I have different options.”

Becoming an office drone would have been unthinkable only a couple of years ago, but as Boateng’s continual evolution suggests, the bad boy of Berlin is all too ready for a change in course.