Review of almost 200 transfers
“I never thought about doing anything else apart from the coaching position,” says coaching legend Felix Magath Transfermarkt podcast “Done Deals”. The fact that many years were added at the same time as head of sport was more of a coincidence. Magath reviews his career, gives insights into the transfers of Manuel Neuer and Edin Dzeko and the challenges at Schalke. He also reveals how his work with Uli Hoeneß at FC Bayern differed from the other Bundesliga stations. Listen now at Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Amazon Music.
After the double double in 2005 and 2006, Magath said goodbye to Säbener Straße with the realization that “I don’t fit in with Bayern Munich because it wasn’t actually Bayern Munich’s philosophy to develop players.” Magath was clear that he had little influence on the transfers alongside Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and Hoeneß. But “I would have hoped or believed that if I was successful, I would be able to have more influence. But then I was wrong,” said Magath, who was Bayern coach for 944 days – since then only Pep Guardiola has been on the Munich bench longer.
Magath named the problem “that at Bayern the players could always walk past the coach to the board and then talk to the coach. If that’s the situation, I’ll tell you, then basically no coach has a chance,” explains Magath, who never had the best relationship with the Bayern bosses. “Ask Ancelotti, ask van Gaal. There were other coaches who are more internationally recognized than I am. And yet they weren’t there that long either.” In contrast to Ancelotti or van Gaal, Magath only got two additions in Lúcio and Lukas Podolski, which cost more than 10 million euros.
Sorted by transfer fee: Under or from players signed by Felix Magath
Magath on Eintracht Frankfurt: managerial task “without my wanting it”
Before his time in Munich, where he took a break from being a manager, Magath filled both roles in Frankfurt and Stuttgart. When he joined Eintracht Frankfurt at the end of 1999, “the club had too many debts, there was no manager and there was no president,” the 69-year-old recalls. “In this respect, positions were free. I took on some of the managerial responsibilities without wanting to, and without getting “a mark more for it.” managed to stay up, in the second it was over after the first half of the season. Magath explains how the transfer of crowd favorite Jan Aage Fjörtoft and a series of defeats led to his end in “Done Deals”.
Although the job as unofficial SBU manager was probably not that appealing to him, it continued at VfB Stuttgart only four weeks later in February 2001 and from the end of 2002 a second post was added. Magath took over VfB in the relegation battle together with manager Rolf Rüssmann and also held the class thanks to many homegrown players. In December 2002, Klammen Schwaben parted ways with Rüssmann and it was that time again: Magath was asked “whether I would be willing to take on these tasks because they had no money. And then I said, ‘Okay, if that’s the case, if they have to let go of the manager, then they don’t need to hire a new one, then I’ll do it until then.'”
VfB additions
During Magath’s tenureTo overview
At VfB he was in office until his move to Munich in 2004. “So anything you might be told isn’t right. I didn’t push myself to necessarily become a manager and a board member or whatever. I always just wanted to be a coach and would have always been happy if I could only have been a coach,” said Magath, who led VfB to eighth, second and fourth place. Even at VfL Wolfsburg, who hired him four months after his departure from Munich, it wasn’t to be “just a coach” again.
Magath in the Caribbean, Hollerbach in Bosnia and Dzeko to VfL Wolfsburg
Magath remembers: “I was lying by the pool with my father in Puerto Rico, tanning and resting. Then the phone rings and Professor Winterkorn (ex-VW boss, editor’s note) is on the line and asked me: ‘Mr Magath, tell me, VfL Wolfsburg is looking for a manager, can we get you there address?'” It went to Braunschweig, where he met with the VfL supervisory board and the question arose: “If you were to become a manager now, who would you get as a coach?” Magath said: “If you like me ask, at the moment I don’t know of anyone besides me.” A short time later, the squad planning began because, according to the new coach, the “Wolves” only had twelve professionals under contract at the time.
VfL additions
During Magath’s 1st termTo overview
Edin Dzeko should be one of the newcomers. “Because I was in the Caribbean, I called my boyfriend at the time, and later my assistant, Bernd Hollerbach, and said: ‘You, do me a favor, be so good and fly to Bosnia, there’s an international match and you can play there the first time. Be so kind as to take a look and let me know.’ Well, then he called after the game and said: ‘Get it straight away.’” VfL transferred 4 million euros to FK Teplice and thus secured the future top scorer and championship maker.
“Then I didn’t have to call on a scouting department anymore. I already had information beforehand and then decided immediately that we would take him because I could rely on Bernd Hollerbach 100 percent. That was clear. And that’s why the transfer was quickly bagged,” said Magath. The fact that there was a sensational championship with VfL almost two years later must have upset his ex-boss Hoeneß, who once said that Magath would no longer find a job in the Bundesliga.
Felix Magath on Schalke’s 35 million debt: “It wasn’t anyone”
After winning the title, the former midfielder moved on to FC Schalke 04, with whom he had already agreed in February. At VfL, the master maker lacked the “support”. Magath was greeted with financial problems at the “Knappen”: “I wasn’t just a coach, I was also a manager. Of course I tried to reduce the costs of a ninth place in the Bundesliga, where FC Schalke were before I came. Because FC Schalke had paid like a Champions League participant. That was the sticking point of the previous season, that you were qualified for the Champions League and had invested a lot of money, but you didn’t get through it.”
Schalke additions
During Magath’s tenureTo overview
Magath exchanged players with high salaries “and that’s why there were perhaps one or the other transfer more than actually seemed necessary for the Schalke supporters.” He was able to shape the financially troubled Schalke to his liking, “because the club was so bad admitted that no one said anything or wanted to take responsibility for it. They all withdrew, they all ducked away and it wasn’t anyone who was responsible for the 35 million misery. And that’s why I didn’t have any headwind in the first six months, because nobody dared to decide anything.” In the end, S04 were five points short of Magath’s next championship – second place with the fifth most valuable squad in the league at the time was a great success.
Magath’s end as a coach had to do with his position as manager and Manuel Neuer the following season. “If he doesn’t sign, then he’ll play until the contract expires. That would have been a year longer,” said Magath about the contract situation of his number one at the time. “From my point of view, that’s a simple calculation: with Manuel Neuer I might get into the Champions League, then I’ll get at least 30 million more, maybe a lot more. If I give him away, I might get 25 million from FC Bayern, but then he’s gone and I can’t get this quality back, no matter how much I invest. If we now assume that the transfer was already clear, then FC Schalke had no choice but to sack me. I would never have made the transfer.” On March 16, 2011, Magath and Schalke parted ways. A few months later, Neuer switched to Bayern Munich and said goodbye by winning the DFB Cup.
Magath talks in detail about many more of his almost 200 transfers, staying up with Hertha BSC in 2022 and the prospect of a new job in the Bundesliga in the TM podcast “Done Deals” with host Max Ropers. Listen now at Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Amazon Music.
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