Some sports

Speaking of Manuel and Lalo and their football (soccer) careers! It's not the first time sports has a major part in a gay storyline. And it's not the first time football is of major interest.

Kai Seebach and Joscha Degen in Alles Was Zählt.

First of all, lets remember Joschka for a while... I really loved Joscha and Kai. I think it's a shame the storyline ended so early! Joscha Degen (Carlo Degen) was a depp closetered football player in Alles Was Zählt, who dated a couple of girls, and even married one, before he met the doctor Kai Seebach (Alexander Gier) and there were lot's of sparks! He was so deep down in the closet just because of his football career, and he had to suffer both gay-bashing and oral abuse after he came out with a bang when the team won some kind of cup. But he got his pro contract han he and Kai left Essen together. A sunset ending.

Christian and Oliver in Verbotene Liebe.

Football is a sport for real men if you ask a lot of people. So is boxing. I for one think all sports are for all people, if they like it. And Christian Mann (Thore Schölermann) met a lot of homophobia both before and after he came out in his shooting boxing career. Fortunately he had Oliver (Jo Weil) to pick him up when everything went wrong. He also got gay bashed. I do not know of any out gay boxers in real life. I guess itäs because of the same reason as Christian had such a hard time coming out... But there has been some boxing guys who didn't suffer homophobic behaviour. Both Christian Clarke (John Partridge) and Ben Mitchell (Joshua Pascoe) id some boxing, and also Kim Dahlberg (Jonas Bane) in Andra Avenyn. But I guess it's because they never boxed on any profession level that they got to keep their sexuality their own business. It's a quite interesting aspect of it...

Deniz Öztürk in Alles Was Zählt.

And my personal faourite: iche hockey! I really love ice hockey and we have a great league here in Sweden, which I do follow. Deniz Öztürk (Igor Dolgatschew) in Alles Was Zählt did play hockey. He had some plans to become a hockey pro, but he ended his hockey career because of some different reasons. Homophobia was one. His team mates actually beat up his boyfriend-to-be Roman when they realized that he was gay, and he was a figure skater. They damaged his knee so bad that it almost ended his figure skating career. I understand why Deniz had such a hard ime coming out of the closet. His team mates were really homophobic.

Roman and Deniz in Alles Was Zählt.

Later he started figure skating instead and actually had a small pair skating career, first with Stella and then with Roman. That is his boyfriend Roman Wild (Dennis Grabosch). And it really was lovely. Roman on his hand, also had a period when he was deep into the closet. In the beginning of the series, when he dated Andrew Wellington, he even lied to Annette about his sexuality. And later in the series, we got to now that back in the days when he dated that Marc guy, he was very closetered. But when he got in the paper when he kissed Deniz in Jenny's hen party, he realized that it was time to come out. There are some out gay figure skaters in real life as well so...

Just as a fun fact, also Roman's little brother, Florian, had some kind of coming out moment when he, also a hockey player, was in love with his team mate Frank. But Frank was no Frank but a Franziska, who dressed as a boy to get to play in the hockey team. That was also a cute storyline.

Lari in Salatut Elämät.

And of course, we have our beloved Lari as well. Lari Väänänen (Ronny Roslöf) in Salatut Elämät also had a shooting hockey career before him, when he met Elias Vikstedt (Petteri Paavola) and was kind of forced to come out of the closet. But he only did that after his team mates beat him up so badly that he couldn't play hockey any more. Also the knee. What is it with homophobic hockey players and damaging other peoples knees?! But I guess Lari is alright today anyway, even though he didn't become hockey pro.

Ronny Roslöf and Petteri Paavola in their hockey team.

And just as a anecdote, both Ronny Roslöf and Petteri Paavola, that is Lari and Elias, are playing hockey in real life. It hardly comes as a surprice because they are from Finland. Hockey is really big in Finland as well. Here they are in their team. I guess, by the look of it, that it is some kind of veterans team.

I am personally very interested in LGBT in the sports culture, and really do think that we need more open LGBT-people in professional sports. Mostly, when gay character is doing sports in a higher level in soap operas, or in other TV-shows (Like Zero in Hit the floor) they are deep down in the closet and they have to deal with daily homophobia. I think that is taken directly from reality, tragically enough. But, for the daily soaps to, give space to those storylines, is helping the awareness of the problem in sports communitys. I do hope for more such storylines, and I do hope for more professional sportsmen to come out as gay. We need more awareness and less stigmatization!