Germany’s top 2 clubs will face off in the UEFA Champions
League final at Wembley tomorrow. Guiding them to the finals have been 2
managers who stand at opposite ends of the spectrum. Jupp Heynckes and Jürgen
Klopp have masterminded their team’s successful runs to the showpiece final each
with his own unique style.
The final is as much about the 2 managers as their teams;
Heynckes is 68 and into his 25th and final managerial season and coming
to the end of a highly successful career as coach. Klopp is 45, into his 10th
season in management, is one of the finest young managers around and has a long
way to go in his career. Both managers are hard task masters, but while Heynckes
represents a more sullen, traditional serious approach, Klopp has a more
modernistic, exuberant side to his management. It’s a battle of contrasting
styles on the touchline in Wembley tomorrow night.
‘Kloppo’
Jürgen Klopp and his Borussia Dortmund side have become the
darlings of the footballing world. Part of it is down to the brand of football
that has been on display and part of it due to the charismatic nature of their
manager. ‘Kloppo’ as he is affectionately called by his players has become an
object of fascination for the media with his open and informal approach,
especially at interviews. With his rugged looks, goofy smile & light-hearted humour, Klopp is a manager with something of a ‘rockstar’ image. He
even resembles a stand-up comedian at times in his discussions with the press
and has received as much attention and coverage as his team, perhaps even more.
Dortmund was Klopp’s first ever club outside of Mainz where
he spent 19 years - 12 as a player and after retirement went on to serve as
manager of Mainz for another 7 years. From 2005-2008, before he took the
Dortmund job, Klopp was in a media role with German television network ZDF as
an expert commentator for games involving the German national football team. In
his 6 years at Dortmund, he has won 2 Bundesliga titles back to back and 2
German Cups. Wolfgang Frank, Klopp’s coach at Mainz is his role model and
inspiration. Frank himself imbibed a lot from the work of Arrigo Sacchi at AC
Milan and Klopp holds the Italian in high regard.
The ‘gegenpressing’ style of play, as it has come to be
known, is what Klopp brought to the Ruhr valley club after he took over in 2008
and in the 5 years since, it has brought the club up the ladder to reach the
very top. With a high work rate Dortmund work tirelessly with and without the
ball and rapidly press and close down the opposition to try to regain
possession all the way from centre-forward to centre-back. Although their
pressing style resembles that of Barcelona, they attack with greater speed and
intensity than the Catalan side whose priority is to retain possession of the
ball and build up attacks in a more measured way. Klopp believes that open,
exciting, attacking football is what Dortmund's loyal fans expect and deserve.
Klopp is never overly concerned about being politically
correct. Of late, he has engaged in a bitter battle with Bayern Munich over the
Bavarian giants poaching his best players and copying their style. "What
can I say?" Klopp said with a shrug when asked about Bayern poaching his
best players. “We are not a supermarket but they want our players because they
know we cannot pay them the same money. If that's what Bayern wants... It's
like James Bond – except they are the villain." He also compared them to
China in their quest to be the best saying, “Right now, it’s a bit like what
the Chinese do in economics or industry. Watch the others and plagiarize what
they do. Take the same path, only with more money and other players. And for
the moment, you will be better again.”
Captain Kloppo is on a mission as he looks to inflict a
damaging loss on his bitter rivals to leave them with a third final defeat in 4
years as a means of some retribution after being forced to part with not only
their Bundesliga and German Cup titles, but also their talismanic playmaker in
Mario Götze, whose services he will be without in tomorrow’s final.
‘Osram’
As much coverage that Jürgen Klopp has received from the
electronic and print media, Jupp Heynckes has received zilch. It is not exactly
Klopp’s fault for he is not an attention seeking man, unlike the ‘Special One’,
but it’s just got to do with the media houses who tend to be a little unfair in
shutting out the unglamorous characters of the footballing world.
The nickname for Heynckes, borrowed from the German lighting
company, came about for the way in which his face tends to redden or bear a
reddish glow when he gets agitated on the sidelines. It was first used by Rudi
Gores, a former German footballer and coach. That’s about all the emotion the
veteran German coach exhibits during a game as opposed to the myriad
expressions that one can see from Klopp. A stoic, low profile man, Heynckes is
one of the most decorated coaches in German football.
A well-travelled man, the wily German has managed clubs in
Germany, Spain and Portugal and is one of the most experienced hands around. He
has won 3 Bundesliga titles, 3 German Cups (all with Bayern Munich) and 1
Champions League (with Real Madrid) in his long tenure, this is his 27th
season in management. The silverware maybe less when compared to some others,
but that’s not accounting for the work that he has done at some of the smaller
teams in Spain and Germany such as Athletic Bilbao and Schalke, where he led
them from mid-table obscurity to qualifying for European competition.
He was also a predator of a forward in his playing days and
has both a European Championship (1972) and World Cup (1974) winners medal to
his name. At club level he won 4 Bundesliga titles, 1 German cup and 1 UEFA Cup
with Borussia Monchengladbach, a club where he played 12 of his 15 seasons as a
professional footballer. And yet, despite all that he has done, Heynckes has
never received the credit due to him.
Heynckes of course has not let any of that affect his
performances on the field, be it as player or manager. There has been untoward
criticism hurled at him by fans and media in the various countries that he has
been, yet the man has managed to keep his head and continue doing what he does
best – deliver results.
When he came back to Bayern for a third stint in 2011, the
team was in a shambles ridden with internal squabble and indiscipline and also
defensive frailties. Heynckes has gone about carefully rebuilding this team
since then and after being outgunned to the Bundesliga title the last two years
by Borussia Dortmund, Bayern have returned with a bang conquering all in their
path as they romped to the title this year.
Bayern too under Heynckes are pressing the ball a lot better
allowing teams very little time on the ball. During their 7-0 mauling of
Barcelona in the semis, Xavi, Andres Iniesta and Lionel Messi constantly found
themselves shackled and harassed by a player in a red shirt and the various channels
that Barca constantly use were expertly cut out.
“You have got to analyse how an opponent plays, where they
run, how they attack. Then find something you can hold against that.” – said
Bayern’s coach after the Barca win. That is vintage Heynckes; who is known to
be a master tactician and a manager who spends an incredible amount of time in
meticulously preparing for a game.
A FINAL TO RELISH
Borussia Dortmund are in uncharted territory, most of this season's Champions League campaign has been. It has been 16 years since they won their only European Cup in 1997 and this run marks a return to prominence for Borussia on the European stage. For Bayern Munich, it is an opportunity to right the wrongs of previous finals. The pain of those 2 finals losses still lingers, especially the one last year in front of their home crowd, and Heynckes will be keen to set that record straight.
Dortmund have come to dominate this rivalry in the past few years - Bayern have won only 2 of their last 10 meetings, losing 5 and drawing the remainder. This season, Bayern brushed past every other club in the Bundesliga save for Dortmund. The one win they did have was a narrow 1-0 victory in the DFB Pokal Cup.
If he wins tomorrow night, he will become only the 4th manager to win the Champions League with different clubs – after Ernst Happel, Ottmar Hitzfeld and Jose Mourinho. And if Bayern follow that up, as they are widely expected to, with winning the German Cup, he will have achieved an unprecedented treble, something never done before by a German club and achieved only thrice previously in history – PSV Eindhoven in 1988, Manchester United in 1999 and Barcelona in 2009.
History beckons for Heynckes as he looks to leave Bayern
Munich on the highest pedestal possible. While the man in the opposing dugout, Jürgen
Klopp, is looking to challenge the dominance of mighty Bayern on the European
stage, Heynckes knows that victory tomorrow could well be the starting
point of a new era of dominance for Bayern Munich, not just over Dortmund, but
the whole of Europe.
Borussia Dortmund vs Bayern Munich.
Klopp’s ‘Band of Merry Men’ vs Heynckes’ ‘Mean
Machine’!
It is truly an
occasion to savour!
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