He is one of the most successful managers of all time. Today, Udo Lattek turns 80-years-old and the DFB-President Wolfgang Niersbach congratulates him: “Without doubt, Udo Lattek belongs to the biggest coaching personalities of the Bundesliga. I had the good fortune of meeting him in person when I was a young journalist in the 70s. Above all, his leadership skills were outstanding when dealing with the star players at the clubs he has managed. From my heart, I wish him all the best and, most importantly, an improvement to his health. DFB.de traces the career of the internationally-renowned football teacher.
He has talked a lot his whole life and has always said too much. Rhetorically skilled, as befits a teacher and also courageous, as that was his character. Udo Lattek wears his heart on his sleeve. People like him are suited to talk shows and we saw him every Sunday morning, even when he was 76-years-old. At the regulars’ table on the DSF, the channel which is now called Sport1, defining the world of football on “Doppelpass” and also stirring things up a bit. Udo often interrupted calls from the podium during a debate. The man was a cult figure.
Lattek is seriously ill- Sammer thanks his “mentor and father figure”
Today, on his 80th birthday, he lets others talk. In the Sport Bild, his wife Hildegard talks about how things are going with the Parkinson's and dementia patients at the nursing home in Cologne (“I don’t think that they can be cured, you can only delay it”). In Kicker, Sepp Maier, the 1974 World Cup winning goalkeeper, describes what Udo was like in the Roaring Seventies and in other media outlets some others get their chance to have their say.
There are plenty who have learned to appreciate him. In Die Welt, Bayern’s sporting director Matthias Sammer, who was his assistant during Dortmund's relegation battle 15 years ago, said: “Udo Lattek’s success is connected to his personality. In the year 2000, I gained some very, very important experiences at my first coaching job and I have since seen him as a mentor and as a father figure. He set me on my way in my sporting path and managed me in the second half of my career. I will never forget that. I am very grateful to him for that and I wish him and his family all the best.”
The most successful manager in German football
What will always stay with the great manager, and what no illness in the world can take away from him, are the milestones in the history of football which he has set. Udo Lattek, born on the 16th January 1935 in the East Prussian Bosemb, has come a long way in life. After being expelled from his home in the fury of war, Lattek settled in the Rhineland. From there, Udo Lattek set out to conquer the world of football and also incidentally adopted a career in teaching sport, even though he had also studied mathematics and physics.
As a player, he played for, among others, Bayer Leverkusen and VfL Osnabrück, for whom he scored ten goals in 23 games in the “Oberliga Nord”, the top division before the Bundesliga was founded. That is no comparison to what Lattek, who was trained by his future rival Hennes Weisweiler at the Academy in Cologne, achieved as a manager. With eight championships, he is not only the most successful manager in the history of the Bundesliga but also in the whole of German football. He twice won three titles in a row with Bayern (between 1972 and 1974 and between 1985 and 1987) and won two championships with Borussia Mönchengladbach (in 1976 and 1967).
He is the only manager in the world to have won three European Cups- the European Cup in 1974 with Bayern, the now defunct Cup Winners' Cup in 1982 with FC Barcelona and the UEFA Cup, the predecessor of the Europa League, in 1979 with Mönchengladbach. He won the DFB-Cup three times with Bayern in 1971, 1984 and 1986. “Someone who has 14 titles can not only be lucky. You have to earn that luck,” said Lattek about himself.
More of a friend than coach
Lattek’s rose to fame with FC Bayern, but in return the Bayern also owe their rise to the coach. “It was actually with him that the Bayern’s great era began,” said Uli Hoeneß, who at first got to know Lattek as a player and later became an executive board member and thus his boss. However, the two have first and foremost been friends throughout theur careers. Franz Beckenbauer gave the Bayern executives the advice to hire Lattek in 1970, because they knew each other from the national team. Lattek had been assistant coach between 1965 and 1969. At first, it was more his way of treating his player than his actual qualifications as a coach that made the 35-year-old Lattek a favourite of Beckenbauer’s.
It was generally said that a world class team with Maier, Beckenbauer and Müller in their ranks do not actually need a coach. “Now the FC Bayern, where Mozart and Beethoven are playing in one band, also have someone, who just has to turn the music sheets,” thus slandered fellow coach Max Merkel the new appointment. Just after Lattek had been fired in 1975, Beckenbauer wrote in his memoirs: “In fact we felt as if the new head coach was just part of the technical staff. He never imposed himself on us.”
Sepp Maier told the Kicker magazine: “He was was like a twelfth player. I never felt like he was a coach, but more of a mate.” One could have a good laugh with him. He was the total opposite to his grumpy and unapproachable predecessor Branko Zebec. The player-friend Lattek could be called the Klopp of the Seventies, an age when coaches with a distinguished playing career were the more popular choice. Lattek had only been a forward in the “Oberliga”, but his coaching licence got him to the Bundesliga. His strengths were of rhetorical nature. He always found the right words and no one was better at motivating his team – and be it through an afternoon in a beer garden instead of training.
In Barcelona: Winning the European Cup, quarrelling with Maradona
There certainly was something about this man, who only worked for big and popular clubs. After leaving Bayern, he went to Gladbach, although he had already signed for Rot-Weiß Essen in 1975. “What would you do if you were given the choice between a bike and a Mercedes,” was his cheeky reply to the journalists. Two years in Dortmund followed, but after the tragic leukemia death of his son Dirk in 1981 he needed a change of pace. With FC Barcelona he won the European Cup Winners’s Cup on his first attempt in 1982. And along came Diego Maradona. There was always trouble with the Argentinean drama queen and one time he ordered the Bus to leave without Maradona on board. Lattek likes to claim that this was the reason why he was fired in 1983.
Something good came out of the short stint in Barcelona though. He was free to return to Munich. After losing the 1987 European Cup final against Porto, Lattek wanted to retire from coaching and left Bayern. He carried on with a short stint as Sport Bild columnist and technical director of the 1. FC Cologne, where is good luck charm, a blue sweater, became an icon throughout an unbeaten run. However, he was back on the pitch in 1992. His contract with Schalke 04 was handwritten. He did not receive a fixed salary, only bonuses – peculiar bonuses. President Günter Eichberg thought it would be worth 1.5 million Deutsche Mark if Schalke would be above Borussia Dortmund in the table. This only enhanced Lattek’s reputation as a clever business man.
His history with Schalke did not deter Dortmund from hiring him as their saviour in April 2000. He had five matches to battle relegation. He managed to do so in four games and was received a reward of one million Deutsche Mark. He finally did retire aged 65. However, he was still keen to voice his opinion as columnist for the WAMS and pundit for the DSF. Today he remains silent. “Udo has closed that chapter,“ says his wife. There are more important things in life. The party will be cozy, the family is attending. DFB.de says: Happy 80th Birthday, Udo Lattek!
created by mmc/emd and ap
He is one of the most successful managers of all time. Today, Udo Lattek turns 80-years-old and the DFB-President Wolfgang Niersbach congratulates him: “Without doubt, Udo Lattek belongs to the biggest coaching personalities of the Bundesliga. I had the good fortune of meeting him in person when I was a young journalist in the 70s. Above all, his leadership skills were outstanding when dealing with the star players at the clubs he has managed. From my heart, I wish him all the best and, most importantly, an improvement to his health. DFB.de traces the career of the internationally-renowned football teacher.
He has talked a lot his whole life and has always said too much. Rhetorically skilled, as befits a teacher and also courageous, as that was his character. Udo Lattek wears his heart on his sleeve. People like him are suited to talk shows and we saw him every Sunday morning, even when he was 76-years-old. At the regulars’ table on the DSF, the channel which is now called Sport1, defining the world of football on “Doppelpass” and also stirring things up a bit. Udo often interrupted calls from the podium during a debate. The man was a cult figure.
Lattek is seriously ill- Sammer thanks his “mentor and father figure”
Today, on his 80th birthday, he lets others talk. In the Sport Bild, his wife Hildegard talks about how things are going with the Parkinson's and dementia patients at the nursing home in Cologne (“I don’t think that they can be cured, you can only delay it”). In Kicker, Sepp Maier, the 1974 World Cup winning goalkeeper, describes what Udo was like in the Roaring Seventies and in other media outlets some others get their chance to have their say.
There are plenty who have learned to appreciate him. In Die Welt, Bayern’s sporting director Matthias Sammer, who was his assistant during Dortmund's relegation battle 15 years ago, said: “Udo Lattek’s success is connected to his personality. In the year 2000, I gained some very, very important experiences at my first coaching job and I have since seen him as a mentor and as a father figure. He set me on my way in my sporting path and managed me in the second half of my career. I will never forget that. I am very grateful to him for that and I wish him and his family all the best.”
The most successful manager in German football
What will always stay with the great manager, and what no illness in the world can take away from him, are the milestones in the history of football which he has set. Udo Lattek, born on the 16th January 1935 in the East Prussian Bosemb, has come a long way in life. After being expelled from his home in the fury of war, Lattek settled in the Rhineland. From there, Udo Lattek set out to conquer the world of football and also incidentally adopted a career in teaching sport, even though he had also studied mathematics and physics.
As a player, he played for, among others, Bayer Leverkusen and VfL Osnabrück, for whom he scored ten goals in 23 games in the “Oberliga Nord”, the top division before the Bundesliga was founded. That is no comparison to what Lattek, who was trained by his future rival Hennes Weisweiler at the Academy in Cologne, achieved as a manager. With eight championships, he is not only the most successful manager in the history of the Bundesliga but also in the whole of German football. He twice won three titles in a row with Bayern (between 1972 and 1974 and between 1985 and 1987) and won two championships with Borussia Mönchengladbach (in 1976 and 1967).
He is the only manager in the world to have won three European Cups- the European Cup in 1974 with Bayern, the now defunct Cup Winners' Cup in 1982 with FC Barcelona and the UEFA Cup, the predecessor of the Europa League, in 1979 with Mönchengladbach. He won the DFB-Cup three times with Bayern in 1971, 1984 and 1986. “Someone who has 14 titles can not only be lucky. You have to earn that luck,” said Lattek about himself.
More of a friend than coach
Lattek’s rose to fame with FC Bayern, but in return the Bayern also owe their rise to the coach. “It was actually with him that the Bayern’s great era began,” said Uli Hoeneß, who at first got to know Lattek as a player and later became an executive board member and thus his boss. However, the two have first and foremost been friends throughout theur careers. Franz Beckenbauer gave the Bayern executives the advice to hire Lattek in 1970, because they knew each other from the national team. Lattek had been assistant coach between 1965 and 1969. At first, it was more his way of treating his player than his actual qualifications as a coach that made the 35-year-old Lattek a favourite of Beckenbauer’s.
It was generally said that a world class team with Maier, Beckenbauer and Müller in their ranks do not actually need a coach. “Now the FC Bayern, where Mozart and Beethoven are playing in one band, also have someone, who just has to turn the music sheets,” thus slandered fellow coach Max Merkel the new appointment. Just after Lattek had been fired in 1975, Beckenbauer wrote in his memoirs: “In fact we felt as if the new head coach was just part of the technical staff. He never imposed himself on us.”
Sepp Maier told the Kicker magazine: “He was was like a twelfth player. I never felt like he was a coach, but more of a mate.” One could have a good laugh with him. He was the total opposite to his grumpy and unapproachable predecessor Branko Zebec. The player-friend Lattek could be called the Klopp of the Seventies, an age when coaches with a distinguished playing career were the more popular choice. Lattek had only been a forward in the “Oberliga”, but his coaching licence got him to the Bundesliga. His strengths were of rhetorical nature. He always found the right words and no one was better at motivating his team – and be it through an afternoon in a beer garden instead of training.
In Barcelona: Winning the European Cup, quarrelling with Maradona
There certainly was something about this man, who only worked for big and popular clubs. After leaving Bayern, he went to Gladbach, although he had already signed for Rot-Weiß Essen in 1975. “What would you do if you were given the choice between a bike and a Mercedes,” was his cheeky reply to the journalists. Two years in Dortmund followed, but after the tragic leukemia death of his son Dirk in 1981 he needed a change of pace. With FC Barcelona he won the European Cup Winners’s Cup on his first attempt in 1982. And along came Diego Maradona. There was always trouble with the Argentinean drama queen and one time he ordered the Bus to leave without Maradona on board. Lattek likes to claim that this was the reason why he was fired in 1983.
Something good came out of the short stint in Barcelona though. He was free to return to Munich. After losing the 1987 European Cup final against Porto, Lattek wanted to retire from coaching and left Bayern. He carried on with a short stint as Sport Bild columnist and technical director of the 1. FC Cologne, where is good luck charm, a blue sweater, became an icon throughout an unbeaten run. However, he was back on the pitch in 1992. His contract with Schalke 04 was handwritten. He did not receive a fixed salary, only bonuses – peculiar bonuses. President Günter Eichberg thought it would be worth 1.5 million Deutsche Mark if Schalke would be above Borussia Dortmund in the table. This only enhanced Lattek’s reputation as a clever business man.
His history with Schalke did not deter Dortmund from hiring him as their saviour in April 2000. He had five matches to battle relegation. He managed to do so in four games and was received a reward of one million Deutsche Mark. He finally did retire aged 65. However, he was still keen to voice his opinion as columnist for the WAMS and pundit for the DSF. Today he remains silent. “Udo has closed that chapter,“ says his wife. There are more important things in life. The party will be cozy, the family is attending. DFB.de says: Happy 80th Birthday, Udo Lattek!
