Steffen Baumgart is currently standing out – and not just because of his fashionable hat. Since he took over the coaching position in Cologne in the summer, the club has undergone an astonishing change. And the story of the “miracle of FC” seems far from over!
The secret of this man is certainly his completely unadulterated manner. 99 percent of all Bundesliga fans would like to spend an evening at the bar with Steffen Baumgart. And there is probably nothing in the way of that, if you can trust the words of the current Cologne trainer. After all, Steffen Baumgart had declared before the season that he would not prohibit his players from smoking or drinking alcohol. It would only be good “if they didn’t do it (directly) in front of the bus”.
The Cologne coach and his team have given loyal FC fans many occasions this season. 12 points and 6th place in the table speak for themselves after the seventh matchday. Steffen Baumgart managed a small miracle in Cologne – and quite a few local observers actually attribute this to a large extent to the change of coach in the summer. It seems as if Baumgart got his troop some of the magical potion of the druid Miraculix from the legendary Asterix comics. He himself seems more and more like “Obelix”, who is known to have fallen into the kettle with the magic drink as a child, personally. But instead of carrying menhirs on his back, Steffen Baumgart obviously took the (former) heavy burden of the Bundesliga off his shoulders. The FC has really blossomed under him.
The Klopp of Cologne
You can see this phenomenon particularly clearly in the last few weeks with the regained striker Anthony Modeste. The Frenchman made it from the dark siding back to the glistening, bright Bundesliga show stage. His four goals this season are an impressive sign that something special must have happened around the Geißbockheim in the last few weeks and months.
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 treasure trove of anecdotes. 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 website www.scudetto.de.
Schalke’s unique supervisor Charly Neumann once said about the Rostock native: “Baumgart, the Ferrari among the Hansa Trabis.” Because even as a player, Baumgart fell out of line – and noticed. On the pitch, he always embodied the professional that every fan likes to see in their own team and not in the jersey of their opponents. The lively asset that does everything to ensure that it does not have to leave the field as a loser. Baumgart has retained this passion to this day. It was not for nothing that he once said: “No footballer likes to lose. I always want to win against my children even in the man-angry-you-not. That’s why we no longer play a man-angry-you-not at home anymore.”
At FC you have the impression this season that the team is able to come back at any time. Baumgart himself calls it the “Plan B” that his team has. But it is probably less a system change in the middle of the game than the firm belief that you can free yourself from difficult situations at any time. And Baumgart is particularly responsible for this “belief”. It has that little something that not too many coaches and people have. It is not for nothing that there are first comparisons to Liverpool’s successful coach Jürgen Klopp. Incidentally, a comparison that Baumgart even brought into play when he said: “Dortmund was also twelfth in the first year with Jürgen Klopp. And why shouldn’t it be possible to develop gradually? To become the Klopp of Cologne is a nice goal. “
Somebody like Pagelsdorf
And Steffen Baumgart remembers another great trainer these days: Helmut Schön. The former national coach was nicknamed “the man in the cap”. Since Baumgart switched from his earlier baseball cap to a flat cap at the FC games, football nostalgics have had to think of Helmut Schön at one point or another when looking at the Cologne coach. When the world champion coach from 1974 resigned, Udo Juergens dedicated an unforgettable farewell song to him, in which the following lines also appeared: “You were a general with a heart, a friend and boss at the same time. You knew advice and some tricks and never rode the high Horse.” Words that would also apply to the current FC coach.
But back to the beginning. The fact that Steffen Baumgart is so popular among football fans has to do with his sympathetic demeanor and his passionate manner. And somehow the Cologne trainer reminds of another former coach: Frank Pagelsdorf. The former player and later trainer discovered Steffen Baumgart for professional football in the mid-1990s and brought him to Rostock – and was thus largely responsible for the current FC coach’s career in the Bundesliga – which continues to this day.
For a cool drink
Even as an active player, Pagelsdorf was seen back then that he was not averse to the finer things in life. But he still didn’t understand for a long time why his former coach at BVB, Timo Konietzka, had once punished him because he went to get a “kicker” at the kiosk shortly after he went to bed – until Konietzka “straightened out” the story a little at some point: “If only it had been the” kicker “he got back then. I wouldn’t have had anything against that. What he really had in his hands was a case of beer. And that with his fitness values. The were bad back then. Compared to that, he almost looks slim today. “
Perhaps Steffen Baumgart has learned something from this story of his former teacher – and so it is better not to forbid his players to smoke and drink in the first place. And no FC fan has to worry about the fitness of his professionals at the moment. After all, it is completely sufficient if the coach himself gives the impression that you could have a cool drink with him at the counter.