Published: October 02, 2008 01:22 pm            

Leetz and Matzerath provide goals, leadership for Pirates

BEREA — When Ben Livingston went down for the season with a knee injury in July, Berea Community soccer coach Casey Poynter was just hoping for a stroke of good luck.

What he got was two German foreign exchange students — Max Leetz and Jan Matzerath.

Leetz, who is from the small town of Bruck in Upper Bavaria and Matzerath, who is from Ratingen in North Rhine-Westphalia, were accomplished soccer players who were interested in playing for Poynter.

“Reflecting back on it, it was lucky for us,” Poynter said. “The student-exchange program is such a random selection. It was a blessing, really. They are filling a void the team would have had in leadership.”

The two have had a big impact on the Pirates this season. Leetz, who Poynter describes as a true forward, has scored a goal in almost every game this season. Matzerath has also had a few shining moments, including scoring the winning goal in a shootout to clinch the Berea Cup championship.

Both of them worked with the same student exchange organization that placed them in Kentucky — a company called PAX, which did everything from organizing their flights to finding them a host family. The only thing Leetz and Matzerath had to do was get their student visas.

Both cited independence from their parents as a main reason for wanting to study abroad. Both said they also wanted to see how the school system in the United States operated. In Germany, school goes through 13 grades, not 12. High school curriculum begins in fifth grade and in addition to English classes, students are required to take a second foreign language: either Russian, Latin or French.

When they got here, they found the higher education very unlike what they left back in Europe.

“The school system is completely different from the school system in Germany,” Matzerath said. “We don’t have the sports teams in schools. We play club sports. We have more subjects, more classes. They aren’t all in one day, but split out over a week.”

“We don’t have events like homecoming or prom,” Leetz said. “School is harder. In Germany, you don’t have any choice on your subjects.”

Even the soccer is different. While the rules are the same, many other things are different about the sport.

“In Germany, soccer is all year long, so we don’t have the time for another sport,” Matzerath said. “Here, it’s just a fall sport and in spring you do another sport.”

“Soccer’s harder in Germany. It’s more physical,” Leetz said. “The referees are more picky. Every touch is a foul. In America, there are other sports, like baseball, football, basketball. In Germany, it’s only soccer. Everybody plays soccer. There’s a lot of competition.”

Prior to being placed in Kentucky, neither knew anything about the state, aside from Kentucky Fried Chicken, Matzerath said.

Despite coming from the same country, both are from incredibly different places. Matzerath’s hometown of Ratingen is in far western Germany and is a town of 92,000, according to the 2007 census. It is a corporate hub, housing factions of Vodafone, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard and Esprit there.

“To compare where I am from, my city is bigger,” Matzerath said. “It’s a big city for Germany. Here, everyone knows each other, because it’s such a small town. It’s not the same in Germany. Here, there’s a lot of farms and everything but there, it’s just town.”

However, Leetz’s hometown — which is in extreme southeast Germany — only has slightly more than 1,000 people in it, according to the 2006 census. He said his hometown, which is rural and agricultural, is similar to Berea.

“Berea is just like where I’m from,” he said. “There’s little towns, and farms and not many people and everybody knows each other.”

Here in Kentucky, they found themselves living in two houses with parents working in the school system. One even lives with a member of the soccer team — Chase Riddle. While it took them awhile to meet everyone, they said now they’re comfortable with their surroundings. They’ve gone to football games and plan to attend Berea Community basketball games this winter. However, with three games left in the regular season, they still have business to attend to.

Poynter said having them on the team has been a benefit, and not just on the scoreboard.

“With their experience and how much more popular the exposure to soccer is over there, they’ve given a lot of positive comments to the guys,” he said. “They can give instruction when they’re on the field, just from experience. It’s their game. I think it’s a great opportunity for them to come over here.”

Poynter said he thinks having Leetz and Matzerath here not only helps the upperclassmen on the field, but also the underclassmen who are watching them.

“”They really can help you in some sense as good coaching examples,” he said. “Some of their tactics are so sound that you can stop and compare to them. You can reflect and coach through that. I feel like we already had some players to model around — Silas (Montgomery) and Ryan (Smith) are examples — but this really adds to your arsenal. It makes your team stronger and it helps the younger players because they can look at these players and try to get better.”

        

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