“Miracle from the Wildlife Park”
In the 1993/94 UEFA Cup season, Karlsruher SC lost 3-1 in the second round in Valencia. In the second leg against the then leaders of the Spanish league, a 2-0 win would have been enough to advance. But the KSC played it safe and won 7-0 against the favorites exactly 30 years ago, on November 2nd, 1993. The man of the match was Edgar Schmitt with a four-pack after the striker had been in a serious car accident a week earlier. In an interview with “Kicker” he remembers the “Miracle of the Wildlife Park”.
“Slaven Bilic always claims that it was only his 7-0 that brought calm,” joked Schmitt, who scored half of all his goals in this game in KSC’s glorious UEFA Cup round, which only ended with an unfortunate exit in the semi-finals ended. In the end, the attacker was tied with Dennis Bergkamp on the top scorer’s podium, but needed two games less to score his eight goals than the then Inter Milan professional, who won the trophy after the final win against Casino Salzburg (2-0 on aggregate). second leg).
On November 2, 1993, it was by no means foreseeable for the Wildpark team that it would even go this far, to the semi-finals. A 1:3 loss against Valencia had to be made up for. Schmitt was convinced that it would still work in the second leg. “Valencia were sloppy in the first leg and fell in love with their own game after taking a 3-0 lead,” he explained. “With our only chance I scored to make it 3-1. They let us live, that was their mistake.”
Schmitt’s goal festival against Valencia – back in action two days after a car accident
In the 29th minute, Schmitt started the comeback with his first goal of the evening. Preparer Manfred Bender was also supposed to set up Schmitt’s third goal and Bilic’s 7-0 final goal. Schmitt’s four-pack, which the then 30-year-old had put together within 34 minutes by the 63rd minute, is still one of the fastest of its kind in the UEFA Cup and Europa League.
Despite this, Schmitt “doesn’t at all” see the triumph in his own stadium as his sole achievement. “First of all, Oliver (Kahn) kept us in the game with two or three brilliant saves. I can still see Predrag Mijatovic running towards him alone. When the score was 3-0, Dirk Schuster cleared the ball off the line. The opponent knew then: We have no chance here against KSC today.”
The “miracle of the wildlife park” was preceded by another miracle a few days earlier. Schmitt remained largely uninjured in a serious car accident and was back in the starting line-up two days later in the Bundesliga against VfB Leipzig. “I was carried out of the curve at 170 km/h,” said Schmitt. “I didn’t count the rollovers, and neither did anyone else. I can only consciously remember the last rollover, which happened as if in slow motion, then the car was back on its wheels. My first concern afterward was the book in my passenger seat: The Dragonfly by John le Carré. Hopefully it’s not broken, I thought. Crazy, right?”
“If I had scored the goals for Bayern, there would have been a brief round of applause.”
As a result of the accident, Schmitt only spoke of the fact that his body was tense because he had clung to the steering wheel. He said: “Actually after that I thought Winnie Schäfer would leave me out against Valencia. Until I heard him say to our doc: Eddy will be fit again by Valencia, no matter how you do it.”
The Karlsruhe team then continued in the round of 16 against Zinedine Zidane, Bixente Lizarazu & Co. at Girondins Bordeaux. Here too, after 0-1 in the first leg, KSC turned the result around with a 3-0 at home. In the quarter-finals, Boavista Porto lost out in the Wildpark (1-0 after 1-1). The Baden team’s luck ran out shortly before the final. Without a defeat they were eliminated after 0-0 and 1-1 against Casino Salzburg.
What was primarily remembered was the miracle from the second round with Schmitt’s four-pack, which he believed was due to its uniqueness for the club. “If I had scored the four goals for Bayern Munich, there would have been a brief applause and that was it,” said Schmitt. “In addition, a 7-0 win against the Spanish league leaders would no longer be possible today for a Bundesliga team of our size at the time. Imagine SC Freiburg beating Real Madrid or Barcelona 7-0 – impossible!”
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