Real Madrid have won the UEFA Champions League seven times since Jupp Heynckes broke the Spanish giants’ three-decade drought in the competition in 1997/98 – bundesliga.com examines how the former three-time Bayern manager Munich transformed the continental superpower Merengue.
When Heynckes was named successor to Fabio Capello, who had won the La Liga title in his only campaign in charge, in the summer of 1997, it wasn’t quite a case of “Jupp who?”, but the Spanish footballing world was certainly not bowled over by the likeable German’s ability in the dugout.
Heynckes had learned from some of the best names in the coaching industry, however, playing under the legendary Hennes Weisweiler and Udo Lattek while winning four Bundesliga titles and a UEFA Cup with hometown club Borussia Mönchengladbach. He began his coaching career as his assistant before replacing him in 1979 to become, then aged 34, the youngest coach in the Bundesliga.
Look: Jupp Heynckes’ top 5 moments in the Bundesliga
He led the Foals to two third-place finishes and then – after taking over from Lattek at Bayern – won back-to-back Bundesliga titles between 1988 and 1990. He also reached the semi-finals of the then European Cup – now the UEFA Champions League – in 1990 and 1991, beaten only by eventual winners both times.
He had also enjoyed success in Spain, taking Athletic Bilbao to fifth place in 1993/94, and after a disappointing season at Eintracht Frankfurt returned to La Liga at Tenerife, which he last managed. square in the UEFA Cup in 1996/97 when – as he had been with Bayern – his side were beaten by eventual winners Schalke.
It is on the strength of these successes and – if the media is to believe – Madrid’s failure to reach an agreement with Ottmar Hitzfeld, the Swiss coach who had just made Borussia Dortmund European champions, that Heynckes arrived at the Santiago Bernabeu full of his characteristic optimism.
“I signed a two-year contract with Real Madrid, a club in an extraordinary position, with an impeccable history and a European and global reputation,” Heynckes told reporters after officially taking office. “Real Madrid are the champions [Spanish] champions, and I hope they will continue in the same vein next year. I’m really looking forward to coaching this club.”
When you look at the players at his disposal, who wouldn’t? Roberto Carlos, Fernando Redondo, Fernando Hierro, Raul, Davor Suker, Predrag Mijatovic, Clarence Seedorf, Christian Panucci and German goalkeeper Bodo Illgner, winner of the 1990 FIFA World Cup. There was even a young legend in the making from the Bundesliga, Ze Roberto, in the team.
And Heynckes had no problem dealing with big egos. “I’ve always had a thing for guys like [Stefan] Effenberg, (Mattias]Sammer, and [Mario] Basler,” Heynckes said, citing three of the most explosive characters in German football. “You have to have patience with a player. Anyone can be wrong, arrive late. I have understanding for the little things when the big things are good.”
Considering the end of his Madrid reign just 12 months later, it seems even Heynckes’ patience has run out, but he still managed to bring his team in. the septima – Madrid’s seventh Champions League – at the club, breaking a barren streak that stretched back 32 years to 1966.
Heynckes won the Champions League as Real manager 15 years before repeating the trick in charge of Bayern Munich. – Imago
Olympiakos, Porto and Rosenborg, who pushed Madrid hard and in effect inflicted a defeat on them, were knocked out in the group stage ahead of Bayer Leverkusen, whom Heynckes would later coach, and defending champions Dortmund were beaten on two sets in the quarter and semi-finals respectively. This set up the final against Juventus – runners-up in the previous two seasons – in Amsterdam on May 20.
Bastian Schweinsteiger said of his former Bayern manager that “he puts all the players and the whole team in the same boat” and “I don’t know anyone who has ever had a bad word to say about him”. It seems that at Madrid – despite their European success – Heynckes couldn’t unite his group of stars in a cohesive way. And he certainly had something bad to say about them.
“A week before playing Juventus, I called Jupp and asked him how he was. He told me he was deflated and wouldn’t be working with the team,” the president explained. Madrid’s Lorenzo Sanz, who saw the team rise to fourth place in La Liga and exit the Copa del Rey at the start of this season.
“I then had to round up seven or eight of the most important players and tell them that Jupp felt he couldn’t work with them, that they were sons of bitches and he couldn’t win with them. “
Look: Heynckes found a lot more love at Bayern Munich compared to his time in Madrid
Except he could, and he did in the Dutch capital thanks to Predrag Mijatovic’s 66th-minute goal. Eight days later, however, he and the newly crowned kings of the continent went their separate ways.
“Explaining that the coach who made us European champions was not continuing was complicated, but I couldn’t leave the situation as it was,” Sainz said. “The players have to ask themselves if they supported him enough.”
As rebellious as the dressing room was, not everyone was against Heynckes, whose legacy was far more glorious than his becoming the first – and so far only – coach to lose his job after winning the biggest prize in European club football.
“Beyond the tactical aspects, he is above all a great person,” said Roberto Carlos. “He is very close to the players, you could say he is a friend. He was one of the best coaches of my career.”
The Brazil international, part of the Galacticos squad that also won the trophy in 2000 and 2002, says ‘Don Jupp’ success laid the foundation for Zinedine Zidane, David Beckham, Luis Figo et al to conquer Europe as Madrid dominated European football as the legendary Madrid team of the late 1950s.
“In 1998 the club had waited 32 years to win it. That 1-0 victory was the start of an era. What we did was a bit like what [Alfredo] Di Stefano, [Ferenc] Puskas and [Francisco] Gento had done.”
Former Bundesliga stars David Alaba and Toni Kroos helped Real win their 14th European Cup in 2022. – Imago
Heynckes clearly holds no grudges against a club that have again won the ‘big ears cup’ five times in the past nine years. He now lives on a farm with his wife Iris just outside his beloved Mönchengladbach which is called ‘Casa de los gatos‘. It’s Spanish for ‘house of cats’.
