Dettmar Cramer is dead: The World Trainer – SPIEGEL ONLINE

High black patent leather boots, white pants, French uniform from the early 19th century, right hand on his chest, the three-cornered hat on his head – the famous photo opportunity with Dettmar Cramer presented him as Napoleon Bonaparte, in the summer of 1976 at the Munich Olympic Stadium , A photo that has shaped his reputation. Since then, he was the “Napoleon of football”.

Cramer had just won for the second time in succession with the Bayern Munich the European Champion Clubs’ Cup, the forerunner of the Champions League. In December was added still the World Cup. In his three years at FCB (1974-1977) in the Bundesliga not everything went smoothly. But in the European Cup, they were almost unbeatable at Cramer, of the paternal type Trainer represented – and thus actually represented the counter-draft commander.

“Mr. Cramer, do not worry. If we are already in the final now, then we win”, reassured him the Bayern stars before the finals. To keep the players over 40 games long in the same motivations, was Cramer’s conclusion of this period, “that’s just not possible.” The anecdote that he the young excited Karl-Heinz Rummenigge has poured two glasses of brandy to calm before its first European Cup Final, one of the countless Dettmar Cramer stories.

early as Herberger- Assistant experience gathered

The years around 1975 were considered purely sporting its greatest era as manager. But in reality it was only a tiny portion of this spectacular biography as well-traveled football coach. Born on April 4, 1925 in Dortmund, Cramer had occurred nine years in a football club. “As long as I can remember, I’ve played with balls”, he once reported.

An outstanding footballer was not from him. But after World War II, he survived as a paratrooper, he began at the West German Football Federation a remarkable career as a coach. The model, which Cramer revered above all, the coach of the world champion of 1954. was “Sepp Herberger had this genius to present complicated operations in very practical examples,” he wrote in 1995 in the book “Football psychology” in which he this science with distinctive practical examples illustrated.

Equipped with the DFB coaching license no. 24, he worked Herberger and Helmut Schoen many years as an assistant to. He took for example Franz Beckenbauer in 1964 in the national youth team. As the shining example Herberger Also Cramer developed with time at a football Aphoristiker. “In the game there are really only two problems:. These are space and time, when I have plenty of room, I have enough time for what I have to do,” was one of his many wisdoms. “What was, indeed does not count,” another. Or: “From a sad ass is never a happy fart.”

 
 
 

DPA

Fußballlehrer Cramer: Here he explains Sepp Maier (l.), the goalkeeper world

In 1963 Germany coach Herberger it Cramer very ill when he accepted an offer of just founded ZDF. But the time as sports editor lasted only three months. Cramer is moved back to the business of football, and he became a globetrotter of football. In more than 90 countries Cramer taught football, mostly on behalf of the world governing body FIFA.

As early as 1960 he had trained in Japan, after 1967 he worked for the Fifa again in the Far East and won with the national team at the 1968 Olympic Games bronze medal. “I do not know who has learned more, the Japanese from me or I by the Japanese,” he said later. 1991/92 he coached the South Korean Olympic team.

But as a club coach, he was in demand internationally, in addition to commitments at Eintracht Frankfurt (1978) and Bayer Leverkusen (1982-1985) he was employed by Saudi Arabia to Greece.

Everywhere he impressed the football players with its direct access, of this mixture of psychology and tangible practice. When the legendary striker Gerd Müller had not taken longer, Cramer asked him: “You, Look here, this gate in Ostrava at the time that you’ve shot, how was that actually, where is came from the edge?” And then Müller had to tell the whole story of this gate, and that helped already. Then he met again, for this type of car visualization. That was the most important thing in the educational work, Cramer has repeatedly emphasized at the end of his life, this “means of persuasion”.

On the night of Friday one of the largest Compelling offenders of football has died at the age of 90 years.