The Schalke team had just tipped their coach Alex Ristic out of office. Now Klaus Fischer was supposed to take over the coaching position permanently 30 years ago – but suddenly “Sun King” Eichberg had a new plan. And it was unexpectedly spectacular.
“That’s a joke!” Schalke’s idol Klaus Fischer only found out about the news from a few friends exactly 30 years ago – and was understandably very angry. Actually, the interim coach of the Royal Blues was supposed to take over the post of head coach at Schalke for the new season, but President Günter Eichberg had gotten “too hot”. The DFB had still not approved Klaus Fischer, the coach without a license – and now the moment had come for the “Sun King”, as the dazzling chairman of the Royal Blues had been christened, to provide clarity. And Eichberg actually had a plan. A pretty spectacular one at that.
Actually, the most successful club coach in the world at the time, Udo Lattek, had just recently unequivocally and finally declared his career as a football coach to be over: “I don’t feel like making the monkey anymore. When I’m a coach, I have to deal with them players live, suffer, sweat, but I’m no longer interested in whether he crosses with the right or left.” This step was only logical because Lattek had already said four years earlier that he no longer wanted to sit on the coaching bench: “The place has simply become too hard for me.” And so the multiple master coach changed sides in the middle of the season for a respectable monthly salary of 50,000 marks and started as a columnist for the new weekly magazine “Sport Bild”: “I write myself or have them written. But it is certain that not a word from it seems to me that I haven’t checked and approved. I’m not a little fool!”
“He treats people like material”
The fact that this special situation came about at Schalke was due to the fact that the team had opposed their coach, the Bosnian Alex Ristic, at the end of April 1992 – with an impressive 19:0 votes in an internal vote. Although President Eichberg had promised the unsuccessful tyrant (“There are significant problems in the human area. He treats people like material”, Schalke’s defender Günter Güttler) he would straighten things out again, but after only a quarter-hour conversation with the team in the dressing room, he had to Even the “Sun King” grudgingly realized that he had no chance against the “lousy sods” (original sound Eichberg). And so Klaus Fischer took over the team on an interim basis.
Ben Redelings is a passionate “chronicler of football madness” and a supporter of the glorious VfL Bochum. The bestselling author and comedian lives in the Ruhr area and maintains his legendary anecdote treasure chest. For ntv.de he writes down the most exciting and funniest stories on Mondays and Saturdays. More information about Ben Redelings, his current dates and his book with the best columns (“Between Puff and Barcelona”) can be found on his page www.scudetto.de.
But because the Vice World Champion didn’t yet have a coaching license, Eichberg signed the then 57-year-old Lattek overnight, who actually didn’t want to be a coach anymore. The multiple master coach explained the motives for his change of heart: “Although I really thought it was over for me. But then over time the consideration comes: The only thing I can do in football is as a coach – and nothing else. I’m not an office sitter, it’s not my world. I’m a professional idiot. It would be terrible if I went back to school as a teacher. No, football – and especially the Bundesliga – is like a drug.” And because Lattek knew that, he worked almost for free at Schalke, as President Günter Eichberg breathed happily into the cameras when the successful coach was presented.
Bonuses instead of a fixed salary
As usual, the owner of several varicose vein clinics had drawn up a handwritten contract with his new trainer and then announced with emotion: “I’ve never seen anything like Udo Lattek in this football business. A really fine human guy. He works here in Schalke, so to speak for free.” And quasi was the decisive (key) word. Because Lattek did not actually get the usual monthly salary, but various payments on specific occasions. First of all 100,000 marks entry fee, then 8000 marks per point and one mark for each home game ticket sold (average audience at Schalke at that time: almost 55,000). In addition, a suite in the Maritim Hotel, free phone calls and the cost of using your own car are included. In the end, however, Lattek no longer collected the bonus of one million marks for the UEFA Cup place and 1.5 million marks for a place ahead of Borussia Dortmund at the end of the season due to continued lack of success.
To fund the coach, Schalke struck a special deal with their shirt sponsor. From then on, Lattek wore a hat from a large dairy product manufacturer and a smart, very colorful tracksuit on the sidelines. During this time, the living advertising pillar Lattek made a lasting impression as a legendary image in the history of the Bundesliga. But only a few months later, in January 1993, Udo Lattek’s chapter at Schalke was already over – and the days of chaos at Schalke ended with the also extremely special commitment of the former FC St. Pauli coach, Helmut Schulte new thing.