Overview
- In a Netflix documentary about Liverpool’s 2005 Champions League final, Dietmar 'Didi' Hamann says he smoked ten to twelve cigarettes a day while he was a player.
- Jamie Carragher appears in the film and recounts that Hamann drinking water at matches often signalled he had been drinking beer the night before.
- Hamann tells the filmmakers he did not feel the smoking limited his on-field performance and that he would have stopped if he had noticed physical harm.
- Coverage links these admissions to Hamann’s post-retirement difficulties after 2010 and to his move away from England in 2018 to rebuild a career as a TV pundit.
- The documentary has prompted renewed media attention in Germany and offers a wider reminder that elite athletes sometimes maintain habits that contrast with public expectations of discipline.