Raphael Honigstein (born 1973) is a German journalist and author.
Early life
Honigstein was born in
Bavaria
Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...
to a Jewish family. In 1993, Honigstein moved from
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
to
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
. He studied law before becoming a journalist.
Journalism career
In the 1990s, Honigstein wrote about pop culture for the German youth magazine ''jetzt''.
Honigstein is the
English football
Association football is the most popular sport in England, where the first modern set of rules for the code were established in 1863, which were a major influence on the development of the modern Laws of the Game. With over 40,000 association f ...
correspondent for the German newspaper ''
Süddeutsche Zeitung
The ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' (; ), published in Munich, Bavaria, is one of the largest daily newspapers in Germany. The tone of SZ is mainly described as centre-left, liberal, social-liberal, progressive-liberal, and social-democrat.
History ...
'', and has been the
German football
Football (or "soccer") is the most popular sport in Germany. The German Football Association (german: Deutscher Fußball-Bund, link=no or ) is the sport's national governing body, with 6.6 million members (roughly eight percent of the popul ...
correspondent for the British newspaper ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' and the UK radio broadcaster,
talkSPORT. In addition, he also contributes to Germany's popular football magazine, ''11Freunde'' and the British football quarterly, ''
The Blizzard
"The Blizzard" (or The Snow Storm) (russian: Мете́ль, ''Metél' '') is the second of five short stories that constitute ''The Belkin Tales'' by Alexander Pushkin. The manuscript for the story was originally completed October 20, 1830. It wa ...
''.
Honigstein now writes for the UK arm of
The Athletic
''The Athletic'' is a subscription-based sports website that provides national and local coverage in 47 North American cities as well as the United Kingdom. ''The Athletic'' also covers national stories from top professional and college sports ...
.
Broadcasting
Honigstein regularly appears on the podcast ''The Totally Football Show'' and, before its cancellation, on
BT Sport
BT Sport is a group of broadcasting of sports events, pay television sports channels in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Owned by Warner Bros. Discovery Sports#Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe properties, Warner Bros. Dis ...
television programme ''
Sunday Night Football'', both hosted by
James Richardson, where he gives updates on German football. He has also worked as a German football expert for
Sky Sports
Sky Sports is a group of British subscription sports channels operated by the satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It ...
, alongside host
Alan McInally
Alan Bruce McInally (born 10 February 1963) is a Scottish former professional footballer, who played for Ayr United, Celtic, Aston Villa, Bayern Munich and Kilmarnock.
Ayr-born McInally variously went by the nicknames of Rambo and Big Mac an ...
, and on
Setanta's coverage of the Bundesliga. He has also appeared on The Friday Football Show on
Setanta, and on
Setanta Sports News
Setanta Sports News was a television channel from Virgin Media Television and Setanta Sports. The channel launched on 29 November 2007. , discussing German football. He occasionally appears on the football show, ''
ESPN Soccernet Press Pass''.
He is a regular for the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
.
Honigstein's book on the peculiarities of English football, ''Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. Die geheime Geschichte des englischen Fußballs'', was published in German by Kiepenheuer & Witsch in 2006, and the English version ''Englischer Fussball: A German View of Our Beautiful Game'' was published by Yellow Jersey Press in 2008.
Honigstein's book, ''Das Reboot: How German Football Reinvented Itself and Conquered the World'', was published by Yellow Jersey Press in 2015 and charts the return of
in Brazil.
His latest book, ''Klopp: Bring the Noise'' was also published by Yellow Jersey Press in 2017 and tells the definitive story of
’s career, transformative footballing genius and how he is bringing the noise to
.