“Story for Stefan Raab!”
The most bizarre goalkeeper own goal in the Bundesliga
By Ben Redelings
06/24/2023 09:33 am
In the 2001/02 season Peter Neururer was finally redeemed, 1. FC Köln took over an old negative record. In Leverkusen they experienced a wondrous season. In the end Vizekusen finished second three times. And in Cottbus, a keeper made for an unforgettable internet hit.
Peter Neururer was relieved. Finally a team had broken their record from the 1992/93 season. At that time, his team, 1. FC Saarbrücken, had not scored for 964 minutes. A record for eternity, Neururer had feared at the time and was now all the more pleased to have passed this “unique” record on to 1. FC Köln. Most recently, FC had scored a goal at home against St. Pauli on matchday 14. Well, on matchday 25, Hertha BSC was a guest in Cologne. When the score was still 0-0 after six minutes, the desperate FC fans sang: “And we have the record, hallelujah”.
Saarbrücken, on the other hand, was rid of him. But the clock ticked on relentlessly. Only in the 75th minute did Thomas Cichon redeem the club and its supporters from the evil goal curse. 1. FC Köln had to wait 1,034 minutes for a goal. In the end, the FC was relegated to the second division. 26 goals in a full season were just not enough to stay up.
- Ben Redelings is a best-selling author and comedian from the Ruhr area.
His current book “60 Years Bundesliga. The Anniversary Album” is a modern classic from the publishing house “The workshop”
He travels throughout Germany with his football programs. Info & dates www.scudetto.de.
In the 2001/02 season, on the other hand, Bayern once again messed up the Bundesliga with their checkbook. First they paid a “loan” of 1.5 million marks to Sebastian Kehl from Freiburg because he had agreed to move to Munich soon, and then they wrote Sebastian Deisler from Hertha a check for 20 million marks. The matter came out because a bank employee made the case public. Deisler paid the full amount back to Bayern when the tax office raised the first demands. In the case of Kehl, the situation was more complicated because he finally chose another employer and switched to Borussia Dortmund. Apparently they had more money to distribute than the Munich-based company due to the IPO.
BVB had already invested 29 million marks in Tomas Rosicky during the winter break of the previous season, and now they have put another 21 million on the table for Jan Koller and over 50 million for Marcio Amoroso. And it started well for Borussia. Amoroso enthused: “If you have a Tomas Rosicky in your team, you have a contract to score goals as a striker!”
It will be bitter for Bayer
In addition to BVB, Leverkusen also played a very good round. Bayer trainer Klaus Toppmöller even thought the supporters of a rival in the title fight were on his side: “I get around a lot, there are even many Bayern fans who keep their fingers crossed for us. You can also win yourself to death. Bayern was now three times league champions, cup winners, champions league winners, world cup winners. If you’ve seen the players 100 times on TV, you can’t see their faces anymore.”
And for a long time things looked really good for Bayer Leverkusen in the championship race. Klaus Toppmöller’s team was still five points ahead of Borussia Dortmund after the 31st match day. But then Bayer collapsed. On Matchday 32, they lost 2-1 at home to Werder Bremen, while BVB beat 1. FC Köln 2-1 through a goal by Amoroso in the 89th minute. The taunts from Dortmund became louder and more intense. “In the end, the hunter always wins,” said BVB, but Toppmöller brushed such phrases aside with a smile: “I don’t believe in this kindergarten psychology.” But in the end he had to.
On matchday 33, Leverkusen lost 1-0 in Nuremberg, while BVB won 4-3 in Hamburg. Although with the support of the referee, as HSV manager Beiersdorfer said (“A 2.02-meter man falls as if he had balloons in his stomach. And Fandel falls for it”), but in the end it didn’t matter, of course. BVB had taken the lead in the table and of course didn’t want to give it up. But Dortmund had to beat Werder Bremen in the last game of the season. Things didn’t look good in this game for a long time after Bremen took the lead through Stalteri and despite Koller’s equalizer before the break. But when Ewerthon took the lead in the 74th minute, the game was over. After an exciting race to catch up, BVB became German champions.
“What have I done wrong?”
And in Leverkusen you were depressed. Because the team not only lost the championship title within eleven days, but also lost the Champions League final against Real Madrid (1: 2) and the cup final against Schalke (2: 4), Bayer had finally become runners-up. In the Bundesliga, the club had finished second in the final standings four times in the last six years. Ulf Kirsten, who had asked pathos in his voice a year earlier in Unterhaching: “What have I done wrong that I never become German champion?”, was completely distraught.
September 22 was a memorable date in the Bundesliga. On that day, for the first time in the history of the league, there was not a single German player in the starting line-up of Energie Cottbus. The guest from Munich easily won the game 3-0. By the way, when the game was blown, there were nine foreigners playing for Bayern that day. Only goalkeepers Oliver Kahn and Michael Tarnat were native Germans.
And once again Cottbus: To this day, this goal is an internet hit – and has been clicked millions of times. In April, Cottbus professional Radoslav Kaluzny deflected a harmless shot from Gladbach’s Marcel Witeczek. The ball then made a high arc, dropped like a heavy stone just in front of the crossbar and then trickled from the back of the puzzled Bosnian goalkeeper Tomislav Piplica’s head into his own net to make it 3-3. Never before had the Bundesliga seen a more bizarre goalkeeper own goal! At the time, the Energie Cottbus keeper was more than shocked: “It’s my fault. I thought the ball would fall on the crossbar.” But Marcel Witeczek already had a suspicion right after the game that this strange goal would stay with the football community for a long time. He said with a smile: “It’s almost a story for Stefan Raab.”
“The last tackle!”
A curious side note from this season: In Stuttgart, coach Felix Magath made a very special promise at the beginning of the season: “VfB is my last station as Bundesliga coach.” Would he have preferred to follow the old philosopher Paul Gascoigne: “I never make predictions and never will.” As we know today: Twenty years later he was to remain in the Bundesliga.
And finally a sad farewell: Jürgen Kohler hung up his shoes on the famous nail. The “football god” left after 398 Bundesliga games, and the “kicker” headlined in his honor full of pathos: “The last tackle!” Finally, Jürgen Kohler revealed a secret about his relationship with Udo Lattek: “I am half an orphan and would have liked someone like him to be my father.” The successful Bundesliga coach was touched.