Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler's texts about leather reflect a lifelong passion. "Football is primarily a language for me," he writes, identifying the central link between his profession and passion. The Germanist comments on the game as he has done with countless novels, poems, and plays: he takes its phraseology seriously and critiques it with great earnestness. With equal lightness, he deconstructs the ball-related myths of everyday life. Language and event meet in a tragicomic duel, which Schmidt-Dengler observes with the captivated skepticism of an interpreter.