Fully clocked (daily newspaper Junge Welt)

What a picture: On the one side of the large sports hall, girls and boys, some of whom are hardly larger than the table tennis tables in front of them, practice all possible serve variations with dedication. A few meters away, behind a large curtain, two world-class players, Timo Boll and Patrick Franziska, are hitting each other with the 40-millimeter ball. “Of course you sometimes look over there,” says Josephina Neumann. The twelve-year-old, who everyone just calls »Josi«, is preparing her skipping rope for the warm-up exercise. It is quite possible that one day she will become as prominent as the men behind the curtain. Her parents recently signed her to the German champions TTC Eastside Berlin, which could make the girl the youngest Bundesliga player of all time next season.

“It will then be like training at a very, very, very high level,” explains the exceptional performer. The sixth-grade student at the Carl von Weinberg “Elite School of Sports” in Frankfurt am Main knows that she will initially only be used as an exception at Eastside. With her current 1,781 Q-TTR points, she should hardly get a trick in the elite league against opponents who have 300, 400 or even 500 points more on their account. “I don’t have to win there. I can play there freely and easily,” reports “Josi,” astonishingly reflected on her sporting maturity plan. »I can learn how it feels to play against much better players. All this helps me. I can then take that with me to training and continue to improve.«

Neumann’s move from TSV Langstadt east of Darmstadt to Berlin only makes sense if the unusual cooperation is intended for the long term, emphasizes the Hessian state coach Tobias Beck. “Anything else would be illogical,” says the man who has been at “Josis”‘s side for two and a half years. In the past season, she confidently rose from the third to the second Bundesliga with the second Langstadt women’s team and contributed to a balanced record in her individual games with five wins and five defeats each.

“She wants it, she’s up for it, she can torture herself,” says Beck, describing his protégé’s motivation. Three times a week she trains in the afternoons with the best of the Hessian youngsters. There are also strength and athletic units, physiotherapy and three other weekly training sessions with Beck in the small “Neumannsche Privathalle” at home in Petterweil, a district of Karben in the north of Frankfurt. Your days are perfectly timed. The “Taxi Mom and Dad” takes you to school in the morning and home from training in the evening. Josephina always travels from school to the sports hall together with classmates from other sports in the special “sports school shuttle bus”.

This rhythm will hardly change for the young player with the move to Eastside Berlin, except that she will also train with her new colleagues in the future – which is unusual in Langstadt. This is also one of the reasons for the change, says Beck.

Last year, the Hessian won the U15 European Championship title with the German girls’ team. This summer, the European Youth Championships in Belgrade are the highlight of the season. In addition, she can gain a lot of experience in the international tournament series that started last year. Tournaments all over Europe, whether in the U15, U17 or even U19 class – »Josi« plays along and gets the first important insights into the life of a table tennis professional. The twelve-year-old can use the stage to gradually develop into a Bundesliga regular. She doesn’t know exactly how long her contract with Eeastside will run: “I think four years.” Manager Andreas Hain wants to leave jW– Don’t make the request more specific either: »We won’t give any information about that! But it’s been a few years.”