Along the way, Lutz led an adventurous life. In Singapore, he was accused of fixing matches for the Asian gambling maffia. He spent three months in jail, despite never being found guilty by a judge or jury. Lutz passed lie-detector tests and was eventually released from prison, having lost sixteen kilo’s in prison and several tens of thousands of dollars, because of the costs of legal aid.
In Tehran, Lutz played for a 100,000 crazed Iranians in the Asian Champions League with Geylang United. According to Lutz, it was like playing football “in front of the gates of hell itsself.”
He stopped breathing three times after a collision while playing for Bradford Park Avenue against Harrogate Town in a UniBond League match on 26 December 2002. The injury was so serious that the referee, John Moss, abandoned the match. Bradford Park Avenue were leading 2–1 at the time of the incident.
All in all, Lutz has been the ultimate opportunist. He has taken every opportunity that came across his path and he’s had the sort of career most people can only dream about. Now this wonderful career started because he refused to play in the Bayern München reserves and opted for a switch to Malaysia instead.
In a way, his career reads like a sort of insane movie-script, with wonderous events taking place and unrealistic transfers taking place every year. In fact, rumours have it that a film about Lutz’ career is bound to appear within the next two years.
Fact or fiction, Lutz is an example to average footballers world-wide who have dreamt about playing professional football some day. Instead of waiting for something to happen, Lutz has taken a gamble and went out to do the job he loves doing.
This job has taken him to pretty much every corner of the world, and it has given him some serious troubles (like dying on the pitch...), but you have to respect what the man has been doing the past two decades.
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