Interview with Ottmar Hitzfeld, Borussia Dortmund coach 1991-97, interview by Sebastian Sollgan of Schwatz-Gelb, translated by Ben McFadyean

Born in L?rrach in South West Germany on 12 January 1949, Ottmar Hitzfeld is a German former professional?footballer who played as a striker. As a manager he accumulated a total of 18 major titles, mostly in his tenures with?Grasshoppers Zürich, Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich.

A trained mathematician and sports teacher, Hitzfeld is one of the most successful coaches of German and international football. He has been elected "World Coach of the Year" twice in 1997 and 2001; he is one of only five managers to win the European Cup/Champions League alongside Ernst Happel, Jose Mourinho, Jupp Heynckes and Carlo Ancelotti.

Playing career:

As a player, Hitzfeld joined FC Basel in 1971. With this club the forward won the Swiss championship in 1972 and 1973, in the latter season even contributing as the top striker in Switzerland. In 1975, he also won the Swiss cup?with FC Basel. Hitzfeld played for Germany at the 1972 Olympic games winning 6 caps in total with the team. In 1975, the 26-year-old Hitzfeld accepted an offer by the then 2. Bundesliga VfB Stuttgart.

With VfB, he was part of a legendary "100 goal forward-line", the goal difference that season was 100:36. In one match against?Jahn Regensburg, he scored six goals, still the?record for a 2. Bundesliga player. After two years, in 1977, the team achieved promotion to the first division, the?Bundesliga. Hitzfeld had by that time scored 33 goals in 55 league matches. In the Bundesliga, the club finished the season a remarkable fourth. Hitzfeld contributed five goals in 22 matches

After three years with Stuttgart, Hitzfeld returned to what by then had become his second home, Switzerland. There, he played from 1978 to 1980 with FC Lugano before joining?FC Luzern, where he finished his playing career in 1983, aged 34.

Managerial career:

During the summer of 1983, Hitzfeld signed his first coaching contract with SC Zug, in the second tier of Swiss football. The team ended the 1983–84 season as Nationalliga B champions. Thus Hitzfeld and his team achieved immediate promotion to the Nationaliga A, the top tier, which was a first for the club. In 1984 he transferred to FC Aarau, which he led to the double of title and cup in 1985. Between 1988-91, he gained four trophies with Grasshoppers Zürich, the top tier titles in 1990 and 1991, and the Swiss cup in 1989 and 1990.

In 1991, Hitzfeld became manager of Bundesliga club Borussia Dortmund. In 1993 the club reached the UEFA Cup final, which was lost over a two-legged tie against Juventus. In 1995, the team won the first title. That was repeated in 1996. In 1997, Dortmund won the UEFA Champions League which was followed by the Intercontinental Cup in Tokyo. ?He finished with a record of 144 wins, 63 draws, and 65 losses.

In 1998, Hitzfeld took over at Bayern Munich, which he led to the 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2008 titles, and the 1999, 2003 and 2008 DFB Pokal titles. As well as the 2001 Intercontinental Cup. Hitzfeld finished with a record of 193 wins, 73 draws, 53 losses.

In the summer of 2008, Hitzfeld took over as coach of the Swiss national team, his first match was a 4-1 win over Cyprus on 20 August 2008. He led the team to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the team were knocked out in the group stage.

Hitzfeld led the team to a second successive FIFA World Cup in 2014 in Brazil, with the team qualifying undefeated in the group. The team finished second in the group E. Hitzfeld’s final match was a 1-0 loss to Argentina in the round of 16 on 1 July 2014. ?

How much do you still follow football, and in particular the Bundesliga these days?

I'm still a fan. I watch the Bundesliga, not just Dortmund or Bayern, but also the relegation battle, which is always very exciting. I have a passion for football, and that is something which always remains of course, I just enjoy watching it these days, that's about it really.

When you watch your former clubs, can you really do so completely dispassionately?

When Bayern or Dortmund play of course I root for them, and I read every headline, and every match report about what's going on behind the scenes. I really enjoy reading what the journalists write. Although I know from my own time that you sometimes cannot believe what they write and think they know. In fact, only half of what they say really goes on is true (laughs..).

Let's go back a few years or decades from the current time: when Jürgen Klopp talks about his successful time at BVB, he usually starts with the Revierderby in 2007/8 where BVB was down 3-0 at the break but it finished 3-3, a very close match which could have easily gone the other way. The first half showing was so poor, he feared that he would be dismissed after the game. Was there a decisive game that like for you?

I couldn't recount the individual games from memory. But when I look them up on the Internet and see how they went, I can feel it all over again. Then it seems like it was yesterday and I'm right there again. But I've seen so many games that you forget some of them. Season 1994/95 is still very present because it was an up-and-down year for me, for all of Dortmund, a roller coaster of emotions. The many setbacks we had were something I'd never experienced before, and I never experienced them as a coach again since.

The injuries that season alone: Centre-forward Flemming Povlsen, who was an important player, a key driver in the team, was out for months. In the final spurt, striker Stephane Chapuisat, who was also always a guarantor for important games, and later another forward Karl-Heinz Riedle also dropped out. Probably no other team would have been able to cope with that, but that's when we dug deep and discovered our second string strikers. What Lars Ricken and Ibrahim Tanko achieved at such a young age, at just under 18, was terrific. It's not easy to deal with all the pressure at that age of keeping the team afloat at such a young age.

You just said that 94/95 was a season with a lot of ups and downs and a lot of setbacks. Was that the season with the most ups and downs and therefore also the most formative season of your career?

Yes, absolutely. Of course, that was also linked to the expectations. Our goal was always to become German champions. We continuously strengthened the side. With it the pressure increased for everyone. At the end of 1994, we were 'Herbstmeister' (champions of the first half of the season), so of course there was a certain anticipation, thinking "We can really do it this season. And then came the injury setbacks I mentioned: It's a miracle that we still made it.

Did you ever have the feeling that the championship win wasn't going to happen after all?

No, as a coach you don't think like that. My philosophy is always just to tackle the next game and make the best possible use of the situation. You must never lose faith. Who else is supposed to believe in the team if not the coach? It doesn't matter who plays: When I put the team in, I have to be convinced that we will win the game even with five or six substitutes.

How do you convey that? Did you have any special motivational tactics that you could conjure out of the hat? Matthias Sammer was notoriously difficult, so perhaps an example involving Matthias?

Matthias would be something there would be a lot to talk about (laughs...). There were a few situations. Matthias always had his own way of looking at situations. He always wanted to discuss. But football is not just about talking. You can explain a lot in theory, but in football it's ultimately decided inside 90 minutes. The fact that the team sticks together, that you totally support each other, that you also have a plan tactically and have a strong defence, and are not just good at going forward is decisive in the end. The system we played at the time was also tailored to Sammer to a certain extent, so that he could play 'libero' in front of the defense. He had strong defenders behind him.

In retrospect, great importance was attached to the move to move Matthias Sammer back from midfield to the position of libero. Would you see it that way yourself?

That was the right decision. We actually brought Matthias Sammer in as an attacking midfielder, but Andy M?ller was more outstanding in the position. Sammer's position was either right up front or behind the front line. That's where he started his career, and that's also where he played in when he went to Inter Milan. But it didn't work out there and we thought that he could do it again in the Bundesliga and develop more of a scoring threat. It didn't work and so we decided to move him in front of the defense, which turned out to be spot on for him.

Let's talk about Andreas M?ller, for a long time he was regarded as the best overall package going, he was the best midfielder Borussia Dortmund has ever had under contract. Would you agree with that?

In his own way, of course. M?ller was of course world-class in terms of his technical potential, his speed, his dribbling, his turbo attack. But we also had other very good midfielders. Michael Zorc, for example, was very important when he played because he scored many goals. Many on penalties, but he was also world class with his header. He scored many decisive goals and always had the instinct to go into the penalty area at the right moment.

Michael Henke, your assistant at the time, was a great part of the coaching team, the scenes on the bench with Ottmar Hitzfeld and Michael Henke was the defining image of the 1990s at BVB. What made Henke so important to you?

Michael Henke was incredibly loyal. He became a friend, we could talk openly about all the problems within the team and I knew that nothing would leak to the press. I couldn't talk to anyone else, at most with BVB's general manager Michael Meier, who always supported me unconditionally and also became a friend. Otherwise, in the football business, you're not allowed to discuss problems within the team with other people, because it's not supposed to go beyond the coaches and the manager. It's important to be able to exchange ideas. In that respect, Michael Henke and I were an ideal team. We had the same philosophy, we had almost the same views, also with regard to people management. He was always very good at motivating the team, even when he was in charge of training. We always divided it up. I usually trained the forwards and he the defenders or vice versa. That way, we were able to coordinate the tasks very well.

Stephane Chapuisat once told us in an interview that your greatest strength was how you dealt with the players. You knew who needed the most freedom and who should be kept on a shorter leash. Who did you keep on a particularly short leash?

(laughs...) With everyone. You have to have a feeling for the players. The coach has to be aware when the team needs a tougher talk in training, when they're too sloppy or produce misplaced passes that shouldn't happen otherwise. You have to intervene immediately. In the same way, as a coach you have to sense when the team is tense or nervous, and then you have to motivate them again. It's a constant exchange with signals that you pick up or send out to your team.

Is emotional intelligence a main criteria for success as a coach?

That's one thing that is important and is sometimes paid too little attention to...For me, this is a very important criterion. In a situation at a club with limited financial resources, I still prefer to get a highly gifted, technically strong player, who may sometimes fade off, but who also scores important goals afterwards. But it's not ideal. If you have more options in terms of finances, you can buy a more complete package.

One player who felt the effect of your understanding of human nature was Lars Ricken. Was it planned to put Lars and Matthias together in a room so Matthias Sammer acted as a mentor to Lars?

As a coach, you do think about who you put together. The players always have double rooms, only rarely single rooms. I knew that Matthias Sammer was very good at supporting the players and pointing out their mistakes, but still showing them the way. So putting Lars and Matthias together was actually ideal, yes.

If we think back to 1995 and the last few games, there was a situation on the penultimate matchday where the whole thing threatened to collapse. BVB was trailing 1-0 at the break in Duisburg, and Werder Bremen was on its way to victory at the same time. That would have been the championship for Bremen. Do you remember what you said at halftime and what was going through your mind?

As I said, it's always important for me to look ahead. I didn't mention the first half much because we were behind. There's no point in discussing it much. Instead, I said what I want to see from the team, that maybe we do better forechecking, that we need to be more precise with the last pass, the left side of Duisburg's defense wasn't that good... I gave different tips, that's my goal at half-time. You only have three, four, five minutes to talk to the team. The team is not responsive for the first five minutes.

What do you remember about the days that followed after the title win? Were there big celebrations at Borsigplatz, Friedensplatz...

Yes, what you experienced in the city and during the parade at Dortmund's Borsigplatz was unimaginable. I saw so many people with faces painted black and yellow and wearing the jersey and looking out of their houses, happy. It wasn't just the younger fans, but also the older people who were at the windows, looking down everywhere and I don't know how many hundreds of thousands were out in the city, it was overwhelming. I never experienced that again in my life, only in 1997 with the Champions League victory. But 1995 was even more overwhelming because I experienced it for the first time.

This solidarity of the people with the team or with Borussia Dortmund, that was unbelievable. Afterwards, I also experienced German championships with Bayern, but that was somehow... like a family outing in comparison. Even in Switzerland, when won the Cup with Aarau in 1985, in my first year, only a few fans in numbers came to celebrate.

Three years later, I went to record Swiss champions Grashoppers Zürich and won the championship there. There was a reception at the Bürkliplatz square and I asked the president "When are the people coming?" There were maybe 50 fans there (laughs..). That was like Bayern, so spoiled for success, a completely different mentality, you can't compare that with BVB, in Dortmund they really celebrate.

Another small example: when I came to Dortmund in 1991 and then bought a Kicker Sportmagazin or the local newspaper at the newsagents, the old lady in the shop would say "Aren't you our coach?". Our coach, not BVB's coach. You just don't hear things like that anywhere else.

There are many fans who consider you the best coach in BVB history. Now, of course, you've had competition in the last 10 years in the form of Jürgen Klopp so which is it?

I think it's nice that people remember me. They used to say "Here comes Ottmar," not "Here comes Hitzfeld." That was the best compliment of all. that you're also accepted as a person in Dortmund.

Thank you very much for the interview.