In the series “My first place”, prominent footballers (inside) return to their roots. This time Sascha Mölders to Vogelheimer SV.

Everyone has that one club where it all began. For former RWE and MSV player Sascha Mölders, that was Vogelheimer SV. This series was previously only available in the print editions of Forecasting. Now it is also available online – with a slight time delay. But the first club always remains the same.

Sascha Mölders started playing soccer at the tender age of three and a half at Vogelheimer SV in Essen. But when it came to professional soccer, the early starter turned out to be a late bloomer. His next stops were Atletico Essen, SG Essen-Schönebeck, Schwarz-Weiß Essen and Wacker Bergeborbeck and had precious little to do with the big sport.

It was only at the age of 21 that the striker joined the MSV Duisburg reserve team. This makes him one of the very few professionals who have not been trained in a youth training center. But Mölders does not believe in the supposed training deficit; in fact, he even misses the days of playing on ash. “Many footballers no longer know what it’s like. If you grow up on a surface like that, you can do more than others. It makes me sick that there’s now artificial turf on my first pitch.”