1992/93 season: In Saarland, a wild group led by trainer Peter Neururer made headlines. There has never been such a collection of bizarre types in the Bundesliga again. And what are Bayern doing? They have to cut the winning cake – because surprisingly Bremen becomes champion!
In the 1992/93 season, the trainer of this crazy team from 1. FC Saarbrücken was actually the young Peter Neururer. When the man from the Ruhr area drove up in his Porsche on his first day in Saarland, a little on time with squeaking tires, a reporter who was present spoke the now legendary sentence: “Peter Neururer doesn’t drive a car, Peter Neururer hurls the car!” How true.
And so it is hardly surprising that this realization led to a brief moment of amusement a few months later in the sadness of the relegation battle when the coach was handed a letter from Flensburg during an ongoing press conference. Peter Neururer opened the envelope immediately, just seconds later threw his arms in the air and then grinned: “Yippie, finally scored two points again!”
And because there was so little to celebrate for 1.FC Saarbrücken in this very special Bundesliga season, Neururer once even tore a ligament while celebrating a goal for his team. His body just wasn’t ready for a goal anymore. But it was also a crazy year – and that was mainly due to the incredible guys that the “verbal erotic” Neururer had gathered around him. Wolfram Wuttke, Stefan Brasas, Thomas Stickroth, Arno Glesius, Stephan Beckenbauer, Michael “Balu” Kostner and the first American in the Bundesliga, Eric Wynalda, first had to be accommodated in a single team.
Five kilos weight loss in one session
In addition, there was assistant coach Rüdiger “Flankengott” Abramczik, whom Neururer once sent off during a press conference with the words: “Abi, go into the forest with the team, run a lap. But always stay in a relaxed aerobic range!” When the squad returned to the clubhouse over an hour later, some players vomited right at Neururer’s feet. Abramczik smiled at the head trainer, who shook his head, and said contentedly: “I made it really long!” Afterwards, the two trainers are said to have briefly but vigorously exchanged views on aerobic and anaerobic training.
Wolfram Wuttke also caused a lot of amusement in Saarbrücken back then. Neururer still likes to talk about the training camp in Guatemala back then and with great pleasure. The coach had naively said before the practice sessions that if you didn’t pass the fitness test, you couldn’t be in the starting lineup at the start of the Bundesliga. His top performers Michael Kostner and Wolfram Wuttke failed the first attempt. A few kilos too much on the ribs obviously weighed too much.
And so Wuttke put on his famous “sweat jacket” and ran down five kilos in a single session at temperatures of around forty degrees. The test was passed and on the subsequent return flight, Wuttke, who was otherwise always so lively, slept through the night, exhausted but happy. The fact that he was missing from the starting lineup here and there was due to other things, as Neururer put it so beautifully at the time: “I’ll have to wait and see how he’s doing. Maybe he’s suffered a brain strain.”
“Coach, I’m an idiot!”
It was a moody and, above all, very linguistically gifted group back then in Saarbrücken. About his goalkeeper Stefan Brasas, the coach said: “He’s so long, he can drink out of the gutter.” And the American Eric Wynalda also knew how to inspire with one or the other saying. To the SPD parliamentary group leader, Reinhard Klimmt, he said: “Ah, so you’re the Indian chief. Where’s your pen?” And when he first met Prime Minister Oskar Lafontaine, he jovially slapped him on the shoulder and said: “Well, what do you do for a living?”
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 current book (“60 Years Bundesliga. The Anniversary Album”) is available on his website www.scudetto.de.
But one man surpassed everything back then: Arno Glesius. With tears in his eyes, Neururer still talks about the morning when Glesius came to him in the dressing room and said: “Coach, I have to go away for three hours: from 8 to 10!” Shortly thereafter, Neururer was so disappointed in his team that he ordered before the away game in Munich: Everyone has to take care of their own shoes! So did everyone. But when the bus pulled up in front of the Olympic Stadium on a wonderfully warm spring day, Glesius had just woken up from his sleep and looked out the window at huge icebergs. He immediately ran to Neururer and shouted in desperation: “Coach, I idiot only packed summer shoes!”
Neururer looked out and looked desperately at the workers who were just defrosting the ice rink at the Olympic Stadium for the summer. By the way, the game was lost 6:0. Only coach Neururer managed to retain some of his gallows humor after this encounter: “We looked like the Brazilians, we played like barefoot Cairo.” Shortly before the end of his time in Saarland, coach Peter Neururer once again aptly recalled the strange events that had taken place: “If a bomb falls next to me, I don’t even flinch. After all, I’ve been with 1. FC Saarbrücken for a year and a half. ” It’s hard to think of a better way to end this crazy season.
The only woman allowed in the cabin
FC Bayern Munich had caught up again this season. With Lothar Matthäus, the German record champions had brought back an absolute top player from Italy to the Bundesliga. Bayern Vice President Franz Beckenbauer raved about the new signing: “Even if the team is 14-0 ahead, Lothar can still strengthen them.”
After a gripping duel with Werder Bremen, however, Bayern and Lothar Matthäus were ultimately at a disadvantage in the question of the title – even though they had played a very confident season, as FC Bayern’s second vice-president, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, later emphasized: ” It’s cruel when you lead 32 days and then only come second.” On the evening of the last day of the game, the dessert was presented in a festive way at “Feinkost Käfer”. The ice cream cake read in marzipan letters: “1993 FC Bayern”. The whole thing looked a bit strange. A waiter finally admitted open-heartedly: “We simply cut away the word ‘master’.”
So Werder Bremen won the title. After the decisive 3-0 victory in the very last game in Stuttgart and the simultaneous title win, the coach’s wife, Beate Rehhagel, went into the dressing room of the new German champions. Sat1 reporter Jörg Wontorra commented smugly: “Beate Rehhagel craves men’s sweat.”
Her husband Otto himself said: “Beate is the only woman who is allowed into our dressing room after games. She then picks me up and it doesn’t interest anyone at all if the boys are standing around naked – she’s just part of it.” On the evening of the celebrations, Rehhagel finally hugged his midfield director Andy Herzog and said to him: “Look here, we never thought that we would become champions with a Viennese.” Before the season, Rehhagel had sent his wife Beate to Austria alone to “watch Andreas”. That more than paid off at the end of the 1992/93 season.