German trainer legend
© Imago
Jupp Heynckes celebrates his 80th birthday this Friday. The successful trainer sees developments in modern professional football critically. “Football is only commerce,” attested the two-time Champions League winner during the week in an interview with the magazine “Kicker” on the occasion of his honorary day.
“It is a brooding of games, the consumer is flooded. But this is the only way to do business: the players earn exorbitantly, the clubs have to generate the money,” continued the former international. He himself selects very well which games he follows on the screen: “The great interest in football has subsided. Bavaria, Mönchengladbach, Bilbao, Real, Barcelona, in general I pursue Spanish football, as well as top games in England or France. I select,” said the jubilee, who celebrates his birthday on Friday as quietly and in the closest circle. “I look at the big games, but sometimes I prefer to go to the fitness room instead of turning on the Bundesliga.”
When asked what he would recommend to football in general, Heynckes said: “Players, especially the boys, always have to be ready to improve. A career is a career over ten or twelve, in a stroke of luck for 15 years. In this period, a footballer should never stop wanting to perfect. Stylish and an eleven that can change the rhythm and to play calm phases with a very big art of football, which is very good for FC Barcelona. Presentation.
With a view to the new generation of coaches in the Bundesliga and personal details such as Xabi Alonso, Sebastian Hoeneß or Vincent Kompany, the coach put the coach on a record: “Xabi was in three world clubs, at Real, Liverpool and Bavaria, and a player there. As a typical Basque, he always wants to learn. But in the future he has to show what he was doing with Leverkusen. Nevertheless, it is difficult for a young coach at Bayern. I like Sebastian’s occurrence and dealing with the team very much. I am pleased that we have such promising young coaches. “
Heynckes has been one of the formative faces of German football for decades – and also celebrated great success abroad. As a player, he became European champion in 1972 and two years later, and he won four championship titles with Borussia Mönchengladbach in the 1970s. His former team -mate Günter Netzer recently said about the footballer Heynckes and the time together at Gladbach in the 1970s: “He was our best football player in all matters. Heynckes was technically brilliant, lightning – and I hardly know a soccer player who can precede and often predict situations as Jupp. has.”
Heynckes replied in an interview with the magazine: “Günter told me in a similar way. We have known each other for over 60 years. First we take the train to the selection training session to Duisburg and then after he had made his license with 18 in September 1962. In 1964/65 Günter and I played a blind understanding for the first time. unusual.” Heynckes is still in fourth place in the eternal list of top scorers in the Bundesliga.
Jupp Heynckes cheers in the jersey of Borussia Mönchengladbach.
With Real Madrid, he won the Champions League in 1998 as a coach, which FC Bayern Munich led to a total of four times to the championship and even the first triple in the club’s history in 2013 (for the overview of all titles from the coach Heynckes). “The time as a player was much nicer. As a coach, you have the responsibility for the whole, as a player for you and your game on behalf and for the well-being of the group. I was very happy to play players,” the 80-year-old looked back.
He is “relatively good” for his age and he still does a lot of sport. “Many make the mistake that they become too comfortable in old age and believe that now only counts rest. No, you have to stay active,” he said. “The body is like an engine that needs to be oiled.”
“I am grateful for the long life that I have. My wife Iris and I often say that we have to be grateful for the life we have and will still have. I don’t see everything for granted. My life was very busy, but nobody had to motivate me, neither as a player. As a trainer. As a young person, I learned to do without, I never went around the houses with the other boys,” said Heyckes. That with the increasing age “everything is no longer so loose and rapid” is “a great psychological argument. You have to manage to be with yourself. And it is essential that you are free from health, economic and family worries.”