Makoto Hasebe is still a living, playing legend at Eintracht Frankfurt. He will be 40 years old on Thursday (January 18, 2024). It remains unclear whether his time as an active player will end in the summer.
In January 2008 the football world was a different place. In the league, Diego and Miroslav Klose dueled at the top of the top scorer list, the reigning German champions were VfB Stuttgart, and the cup winners were 1. FC Nürnberg. And a 23-year-old Japanese midfield talent was introduced in Wolfsburg. “It’s a great honor for me to play in the Bundesliga. I’m confident that I’ll prevail here,” said Makoto Hasebe when he was introduced.
17 years later you can say: That worked out quite well. Hasebe will still be lacing up his football boots in Germany in 2024. At the age of 40, he is the oldest player to ever play for Eintracht Frankfurt. “I’m very proud that I’m a record player,” he said when he broke the record at the start of the season against Darmstadt. He then added with his own modesty: “But the first three points are much more important.”
Sportschau Bundesliga Live, January 20, 2024 3:20 p.m
“Identification figure and absolute role model”
He doesn’t play all too often anymore; he has only added eight minutes in the league since the first match day. Age just makes itself felt. Hasebe now lacks speed against players who could be his sons. It still remains important. “Makoto has incredible value for us. He is a figure of identification and an absolute role model,” enthuses coach Dino Toppmöller. “I’m very happy to have been on the pitch with him and to have trained him.”
Toppmöller is Hasebe’s 14th coach in the Bundesliga, which also shows what a career the Japanese has behind him. There are also the titles: Japanese champion and cup winner, AFC Champions League winner in 2007, German champion in 2009 with VfL Wolfsburg, cup winner in 2018 with Eintracht, and in 2022 the coronation with winning the Europa League and the subsequent lap of honor by the champions League. “That was my dream,” said Hasebe.
Heroes’ move in Berlin
Especially since he didn’t win these titles in semi-retirement, he was significantly involved. In the final in Berlin 2018, he was the one who prevented the score from 1-2 with a courageous tackle against Corentin Tolisso in the 69th minute. And in the European Cup triumph, he came into the game after just under an hour to hold the defense together for another hour. Hasebe won 100 percent of his duels that evening.
You look up to someone like that, you listen to someone like that. “Working with him is extremely fun. This top level of professionalism is exemplary for every player,” says Toppmöller.
Not just exemplary, she is extraordinary. Hasebe takes care of his body, bathes every day, sleeps for eight hours, and at night he meditates for an hour, he once told Bild, “to put the soul in order.” He also reads a lot; for him books are “fitness training for the heart”.
And writes that he recorded the guidelines of his professionalism in his 2011 book “The Order of the Soul. 56 Habits to Achieve Victory.” “Order is half the battle!”, Never look down on others,” “No complaints, no excuses.” “Live celibately” – just a few of the rules that make him who he is now: the oldest active Bundesliga players.
“In the end it’s like last year”
And who knows, maybe there will be another year, maybe Hasebe will still be on the training pitch in 2025, sitting in the dressing room next to players who could be his sons and who look up to him like a father, bathing, sleeping, reading, plays football when needed. “In the end it’s like last year,” says Toppmöller.
That means: Hasebe will have a say in whether his contract will be extended again. At 43 years and six months, Klaus Fichtel is still the oldest playing player in Bundesliga history. But that’s only on the sidelines.