Kevin-Prince Boateng and Jerome Boateng will be one of several pairs of brothers to line up at the World Cup finals, but unlike the others they will be on opposing sides
Ghana's Kevin Prince Boateng and Germany's Jerome Boateng, Pics/Getty Images
Paris: Kevin-Prince Boateng and Jerome Boateng will be one of several pairs of brothers to line up at the World Cup finals, but unlike the others they will be on opposing sides. Even more unusually, just as in 2010, they will face each other in the group stage.
Ghana's Kevin Prince Boateng and Germany's Jerome Boateng, Pics/Getty Images
While Yaya and Kolo Toure from the Ivory Coast and Hondurans Wilson and Jerry Palacios can give each other fraternal advice and morale boosting chats, there will be none of that between the Boateng half-brothers.
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No contact policy
For Ghanaian forward Kevin-Prince and German defender Jerome — who made history in 2010 becoming the first brothers to face each other in a World Cup finals — there is a strict no contact policy before they play each other even in the Bundesliga, where the former turns out for Schalke 04 and the latter for champions Bayern Munich.
This will hold true for the brothers — whose father is Ghanaian but both have German mothers — till Germany play Ghana in Fortaleza on June 21 in their Group G game. However, at least they arrive at this World Cup on speaking terms.
This was not the case back in 2010 when Kevin-Prince, who is the elder at 27 while Jerome is 25, had been vilified in Germany for a tackle on Michael Ballack in the FA Cup final between Portsmouth and Chelsea which ruled the German star out of the finals.
Wild child
That tackle only served to add fuel to the fire in Germany of Kevin-Prince's image, where he was viewed as a wild child who had been in trouble with the police as a youngster, and has several tattoos associated with gangster life on his body.
Jerome, though, is fed up with this image of his brother and spoke out last year defending him over that tackle and also of his pride when Kevin-Prince was hailed for leading his then AC Milan teammates off the pitch in a pre-season friendly when he heard racist abuse from the other team's fans.
'Proud of my brother'
"It (the tackle) just happened, and it fitted the mould of a lot of people at that time. The Ghetto kid from the deprived area, the gangster footballer from Wedding (an area of Berlin) and whatever else was published about him," he told German newspaper Der Taggespiegel last year.
"But now this — I am proud of him. It could have ended differently."
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