Confession in TV documentary
Former international player smoked ten cigarettes a day
May 23, 2026 – 4:04 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
Dietmar Hamann was part of the top European leagues as a player for FC Bayern and Liverpool FC. He also made it into the DFB team. His diet was not exemplary.
Today Dietmar, called “Didi”, Hamann works as an expert on TV; he used to be a footballer himself. Hamann played for Liverpool FC, among others, and won the 2005 Champions League Cup with the club in one of the most spectacular finals against AC Milan (3:2 iE). The streaming platform Netflix is now releasing a documentary about this final.
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In one part: Didi Hamann and Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher. It is Carragher who says about Hamann that he has created a completely different image than one would know of Germans. The topic: discipline. Hamann admits: “I smoked ten or twelve cigarettes a day because I felt like I needed them.” It wouldn’t have affected him: “I didn’t have the feeling that it affected me physically. If I had that feeling, I would have stopped.”
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But it wasn’t just cigarettes that seemed to have appealed to Didi Hamann back then, as Carragher continues: “If Didi Hamann came into the dressing room and drank water, then that meant that he had a few beers the night before.” Then the club legend unpacks a funny story about the German runner-up world champion in 2002.
Hamann lay down on the street: “Then no taxi would have stopped”
“I remember our first night of partying together. We had a lot of fun and it was time to go home. Then Didi said to me: ‘You know what, I’ll get us a taxi.’ He then lay down on the street.” Hamann’s spontaneous answer and somehow justification: “If I hadn’t laid down on the street, no taxi would have stopped, quite simply.”
Jamie Carragher played his entire footballing life for Liverpool, playing a total of 508 games. Didi Hamann, who grew up at FC Bayern, played for the “Reds” from 1999 to 2006 and played 191 games.