Jens Lehmann Escalates

 
When Jens Lehmann hangs up his boots – or Sejad Salihovic’s – next summer, he can be sure that he retired while he was at the top of his game. His game, of course, is not to be confused with our game.

The beautiful game. Although, depending on how you look at it, you can find a lot of beauty in the things Jens Lehmann is doing. As our twittering Hertha blogger and Jens Lehmann aficionado Abby put it:

I had a theory that Jens Lehmann’s career is a piece of performance art. He has never done anything to dispel it.

Whatever it is that he’s doing, he’s doing it at an almost worrying frequency at the moment. As if he’s working towards a yet to be revealed climax.

His current Mad Jens cycle began with a Philipp Lahm styled and Lehmann flavored damning verdict of Stuttgart’s management. Albeit with fewer words, less reasoning and a bigger sense of self-importance. He paid tribute to the Tour de France during Wednesday’s Champions League match against Unirea Urziceni. He started a little power struggle with Stuttgart, by refusing to pay the monetary fine for his outburst. And on Sunday, he eventually capped off a very industrious week by getting himself sent off in the 90th minute and costing his team all three points.

Stuttgart travelled to newly promoted Mainz, hoping to build on their Champions League performance and start rescuing what little is left of their Bundesliga campaign. Pavel Pogrebnyak put Stuttgart in front in the 11th minute and, despite a couple of chances on both ends, the Swabians held on to their slim lead and looked to be on their way to three valuable points. Jens Lehmann had other plans. He still had a score to settle with Mainz’s striker Aristide Bance, who had crashed into him earlier in the game, prompting Lehmann to take an extensive injury break. Lehmann retaliated by stepping on Bance’s foot. What he probably didn’t anticipate was the unbearable amount of pain he caused Bance. So much so, that it was now the striker’s turn to take an extensive injury break. Lehmann meanwhile was sent off for his unsporting conduct and because it all happened in Stuttgart’s penalty box, a penalty was awarded to Mainz. Eugen Polanski stepped up to convert the penalty and steal two points from Stuttgart.

Unfortunately, the red card means we will be without any Jens Lehmann related entertainment until around February 2010.

Update: Jens Lehmann was willing to play an encore. While leaving the stadium, he chose to end a conversation with a fan by taking his glasses away and refusing to give them back…

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Category: Bundesliga