Toine van Peperstraten

Somewhere in the near future, exists The Arena. Here men with an 'agression gene' with which they want to live no longer, are being admitted to fulfil their wish to die. Through fights to the death, televised by the commercial sportschannel, lives are being ended before one's time. Temmink, one of the gladiators, wins his first fight, finds a friend in a colleague and falls in love with one of the prostitutes. He becomes a national hero and loses his will to die. But, once admitted to the The Arena, there is no return...

For all Frits, a farmer's son, knows, his mother died when giving birth to him. He and his father make up a strong team. In the literal and figurative sense, because his father not only teaches him to milk the cows and hunt, he is also the coach of his soccer team. The happy tide turns when the boy turns eighteen and is scouted as a promising soccer talent. Suddenly, Frits's future is no longer with his father on the farm, but on the green grass of the Nijmegen soccer club NEC. His son's splendid soccer career may be the crowning glory of the farmer's hard work, but he is afraid he will also lose his only child. Desperate, he reveals the lie with which he raised his son. Frits is bewildered and makes a dramatic decision.