Oh Fortuna

Juergen Sugar and Eddy Grabowski are two true-blue Dortmund guys with a soft spot for motorcycles, Pils, and district league soccer. As key players for SV Fortuna Dortmund, they’re once again fighting alongside their team to avoid relegation from District League C as the season draws to a close.

On top of the traditional club’s relegation worries and financial woes comes yet another blow: groundskeeper and Fortuna veteran Walter Milbe is haunted by his criminal past and becomes the victim of a devious blackmail scheme. The mastermind behind it all is the shady real estate speculator Dr. Dr. v. Schwertner, who plans to replace Fortuna’s dilapidated sports field with a lucrative gravel parking lot.

When Milbe, in his desperation, turns to Sugar and Grabowski in confidence, Schwertner and his henchmen bring out the big guns: without further ado, they kidnap Milbe’s lovely daughter, Samantha. Now the matter becomes a real matter of the heart, especially for Grabowski, but when he sets out on his own to free his “Sammy,” he, too, finds himself in grave danger. Team captain Juergen Sugar is now on his own.

He begins to play a risky mix of offense and defense, delving ever deeper into a tangled web of criminal machinations. A shady real estate speculator, a former carnival boxer, his frustrated wife and her Italian lover, a dubious chief detective and his affair in the red-light district, as well as an old, easygoing allotment gardener who knows more than meets the eye.

Fortuna’s fate is clearly hanging by less than a thread. And time is running out, because the last game of the season is drawing ever closer—and with it, the answer to the all-important question: Will Fortuna manage to avoid relegation?