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Paul McNamara

With a 20-year-old grudge against the Italian football team, Waseem Razeek has shed no tears over their absence from this summer’s World Cup.
He “really cried” after his dream assignment as a ball boy for the 2006 final turned sour.
A fanatical France supporter, despite growing up in Germany, Razeek saw his heroes beaten on penalties by Italy in Berlin.
Transfixed on the ball all night, he missed the extra-time headbutt that Zinedine Zidane landed on Marco Materazzi.
“I didn’t know he’d done anything wrong,” Razeek said. “We saw him being chased by camera people [after being sent off].
“It was a hot night but I felt cold in extra-time because I was so nervous, then ‘we’ lost on penalties and I really cried. I’ve not liked the Italy team since.”
Razeek’s father, Jamal, a former Sri Lanka hockey player, moved to Germany to try to advance his own sporting career.
“He soon realised there wasn’t much money in it and became a taxi driver,” Razeek said. “One summer in the early 1990s, he went back to Sri Lanka on holiday and met my mum. They got married, and she became pregnant, then when she arrived in Berlin I was born.”

A whippy forward for local Premier League club Eastern District for 3½ years until leaving this summer, Razeek’s colourful career has involved trialling alongside Son Heung-min, being stopped by his parents from signing for mighty Hamburg, a bizarre but serious injury that wrecked an agreed move to England, and enlisting the help of a leading politician to allow him to represent Sri Lanka.
His formative years were difficult. While on holiday in the UK, the family home was broken into.
“We had to start all over again, and we struggled a lot for a period,” Razeek said.
Named after the great Pakistan fast bowler Wasim Akram, Razeek would go to an Irish pub to watch cricket with his father, who also passed on a passion for football. Jamal bought a television set so his son could watch the 1998 World Cup.
At nine, Razeeq joined SV Tasmania Berlin, the club infamous for delivering statistically the worst Bundesliga season in history 60 years ago but also “known for developing players”.
“The area is full of immigrants and [Tasmania] do something with these boys,” said Razeek, who counts the club’s most notable product, Antonio Rudiger, the Real Madrid and Germany defender, as a close friend. “I’m thankful for everything they did for me, and I still support them today.”
Playing for Tennis Borussia Berlin at under-17 level, Razeek was offered a trial with six-time Bundesliga champions Hamburg.
“I knew my parents wouldn’t let me go, they wanted me to focus on my studies, so I told them it was a school trip,” Razeek said.
“There were four of us staying in a club hostel and training every day.”

Razeek and his fellow hopefuls Muhamed Besic, who would play for Everton; Maximilian Philip, who was on the bench for Freiburg’s recent Europa League final defeat by Aston Villa; and “shy” South Korean Son were all offered deals.
“Because I was under 18, Hamburg had to contact my parents and they told me I couldn’t go,” Razeek said.
A quick, mobile and skilful wide attacker, Razeek was included in a Germany training squad ahead of the 2011 U-17 World Cup, only to sustain a shoulder injury.
“Emre Can pulled me, I fell and he landed on top of me,” Razeek said. Can went to the tournament and within two years had made his Bayern Munich debut. He would earn 48 senior Germany caps.
His shoulder fixed, Razeek joined Union Berlin in summer 2012. “They’re based in the East and no immigrant had made that step,” he said. “It’s completely changed now, but [immigrants] were scared, thinking about Nazis living there. I was the first dark-skinned guy in their academy, but everyone was so friendly.”
Although his first season was “very difficult”, as he adapted to a “completely different culture”, Razeek muscled into first-team contention.
He signed a professional contract 12 months after signing, but promptly paid a heavy price for losing his temper in a pre-season match.
“I got fouled but the referee didn’t award a free kick,” Razeek said. “I chased the player and fouled him, but my boot got caught in the pitch and I suffered an ACL injury.
“I felt some pain, then the next day I couldn’t walk. It was my fault.”
Although 10 months on the sidelines meant a “tough time financially”, given he needed to make one appearance to activate his professional terms, Razeek embraced a “nice learning process”.
“I always remember how much I invested in my rehabilitation,” he said.

Fears over “vanishing from the map” were dispelled when Razeek marked his second match back for the reserves with a winning goal. The following week, in April 2014, he made his senior debut off the bench at Karlsruher.
“I was really nervous, I came on alongside Simon Terodde [the 177-goal 2. Bundesliga record scorer], and it was a brilliant experience,” Razeek said.
With the club demoted under new coach Norbert Duwel the next season, Razeek decided he wanted to “experience something new”.
“It was the only senior job this coach had, it was very strange,” Razeek said. “When I told him I wanted to leave, he was very angry, he told me I could f*** off and not even play for the second team.”
Duwel was fired soon after Razeek quit in 2015 for FC Magdeburg, the 1974 European Cup Winners’ Cup champions, where in two seasons he overcame initial hostility from an anti-Union Berlin supporter base to establish fan-favourite status.
Now hot property, Razeek knocked back an offer from leading Dutch club Twente Enschede, to the chagrin of his Dutch agent, transferring instead to Rot-Weiss Erfurt. That decision backfired when the club became mired in financial difficulties and were relegated, leaving players collecting benefits.
On the flip side, politician Carsten Schneider, an Erfurt supporter who has since been appointed a cabinet minister, was a Razeek fan and helped facilitate his application for Sri Lankan citizenship. While in the South Asian country completing the process, Razeek was asked to join Bradford City.
“Before going to sign, I flew back to Berlin to shoot a commercial for Adidas,” he said.

Razeek remembers the new pink boots he was asked to wear “feeling tight”, and deciding against changing them.
“It was just someone throwing a ball, I had to be on one leg and pass it back,” Razeek said. “As I did it, I heard a big sound, ‘boom’, then fell down”.
In hospital, Razeek told a specialist who suspected an Achilles rupture that he was “crazy”.
“I just took some crutches and said I would see the Union Berlin doctor the next day,” Razeek said.
The verdict did not change and Razeek’s English transfer was torpedoed, ushering in a period of uncertainty when he temporarily lived with his parents and considered retirement.
Ultimately, the fit-again Razeek was persuaded to join lowly Berliner AK 07, before making his international debut in late 2019.
He would briskly grow into a senior figure for Sri Lanka, acting as shop steward in a pay row between players and the governing body that led to him blaming “management shortcomings” for his withdrawal from three Asian Cup qualifiers in 2022.
The following year, the Football Federation of Sri Lanka (FFSL) served a Fifa ban because of government interference in its elections and administration.
“I was the first national player from overseas, and I’m the one who gets angry fast,” Razeek said. “I open my mouth when an injustice happens.
“The [FFSL] president accused me of being addicted to money but I was fighting for the boys.”
Razeek agreed to return after the Fifa punishment forced positive change, spearheading Sri Lanka’s 18-place rise to their current world-No 187 standing, and notable Asian Cup qualifying wins over Chinese Taipei, twice, and Turkmenistan.
After more transfer frustration for Razeek in 2020, when COVID rules grounded him in an airport lounge, preventing him from flying to Malaysia to join Selangor, he eventually gained a lucrative contract with Gokulam Kerala in India, via a spell in Sri Lanka.
Razeek would have stayed longer than six months in Kerala, where he won an I-League title, but for the 2022 Sri Lankan political crisis.
“I had to take my wife out of there; we had no fuel and there were 17 hours every day with no electricity,” he said.

Eddie Mangan, the former Sri Lanka assistant coach who is now with Eastern, told Razeek to “come to Hong Kong and we’ll figure it out”.
He was poised to join Happy Valley, only for the club to be banned from registering players for three transfer windows over unpaid salaries.
“I’d been here three months and had a visa, and I didn’t know what to do,” said Razeek, who had also flirted with moves to Rangers and Eastern.
A polyglot who can converse in Tamil, Sinhala, French, Turkish, German and English, Razeek gained a chance with Eastern District, scored twice on his debut against South China, and settled in for a long stay.
It was his “Chinese skill” that Razeek used to swear from the bench at mainland referee Lei Zhang after Thailand were awarded a contentious goal against Sri Lanka last year.
“Nobody knew who’d said it, so he sent off the manager [Abdullah Al-Mutairi] and suddenly I was the coach,” Razeek said. “When we’d come out at the start, [Al-Mutairi] looked at the benches and said, ‘Waseem, they have 18 staff members. I have one goalkeeper coach who doesn’t speak English’.
“I love coaching and in future I’d like to share my experiences.”
He will not be short of material.


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Waseem Razeek playing for Erfurt against SV Werder Bremen II in 2017. Photo: Getty Images

Waseem Razeek enjoys a celebratory moment with a Sri Lanka fan. Photo: Handout

 Zinedine Zidane knocks Marco Materazzi off his feet during the 2006 World Cup final. Photo: AFP Photo

Waseem Razeek comes on to make his 2. Bundesliga debut for Union Berlin at Karlsruher. Photo: Handout

Waseem Razeek is named after the great Pakistan fast bowler, Wasim Akram. Photo: Reuters

Waseem Razeek in action for Magdeburg against Mainz in 2015. Photo: Getty Images

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An apologetic Mauricio Pochettino acknowledges supporters after the USA’s World Cup defeat by Belgium. Photo: AP Photo

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Sport

Football

Set to leave city after 3½ years, Waseem Razeek was ball boy for 2006 final between France and Italy; injury ruined own World Cup chance


Set to leave city after 3½ years, Waseem Razeek was ball boy for 2006 final between France and Italy; injury ruined own World Cup chance.


Fifa World Cup

Son Heung-min

Adidas

World Cup final tears, and trials with Son Heung-min: meet the Sri Lanka star in Hong Kong

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Set to leave city after 3½ years, Waseem Razeek was ball boy for 2006 final between France and Italy; injury ruined own World Cup chance

Set to leave city after 3½ years, Waseem Razeek was ball boy for 2006 final between France and Italy; injury ruined own World Cup chance