Ottmar Hitzfeld
Hitzfeld with Switzerland in Bulgaria 2011
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| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Ottmar Hitzfeld | ||
| Date of birth | 12 January 1949 | ||
| Place of birth | Lörrach, West Germany | ||
| Height | 1.76 m (5 ft 9 in) | ||
| Playing position | Forward | ||
| Youth career | |||
| 1960–1967 | TuS Stetten | ||
| 1967–1968 | FV Lörrach | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
| 1971–1975 | Basel | 92 | (66) |
| 1975–1978 | VfB Stuttgart | 80 | (38) |
| 1978–1980 | Lugano | 55 | (35) |
| 1980–1983 | Luzern | 72 | (30) |
| Total | 300 | (169) | |
| National team | |||
| 1972 | West Germany (Olympic) | 6 | (5) |
| Teams managed | |||
| 1983–1984 | Zug 94 | ||
| 1984–1988 | Aarau | ||
| 1988–1991 | Grasshoppers | ||
| 1991–1997 | Borussia Dortmund | ||
| 1998–2004 | Bayern Munich | ||
| 2007–2008 | Bayern Munich | ||
| 2008–2014 | Switzerland | ||
| * Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. |
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Ottmar Hitzfeld (German pronunciation: [ˈʔɔtmaːɐ̯ ˈhɪt͡sfɛlt]; born 12 January 1949 in Lörrach, Baden) is a German former football player (striker) and retired manager, nicknamed der General (“the general”), and “Gottmar Hitzfeld” (a pun on Gott, which is the German word for “god”). He has accumulated a total of 18 major titles, mostly in his tenures with Grasshopper Club 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; he is one of only five managers to win the European Cup/UEFA Champions League with two different clubs, along with Ernst Happel, José Mourinho, Jupp Heynckes and Carlo Ancelotti.
Hitzfeld started playing football in the late 1960s with TuS Stetten and FV Lörrach in the lower German leagues before he captured the attention of Swiss first division team FC Basel. He joined the club, located on the other bank of the Rhine, 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 cup with Basel.
In 1973, while playing at Basel, he graduated from nearby Lörrach College as a teacher of mathematics and sports. He retained his amateur status to be able to participate in the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. There, he played amongst others with Uli Hoeneß, the later Bayern Munich player and general manager who would hire him as coach in the late 1990s. One of the highlights of this tournament was the first encounter between the national sides of West and East Germany on the football pitch. West Germany lost this match 2–3, and thus failed to reach the semifinals. In this match, Hitzfeld scored one of his five goals in the tournament. In 1975, the 26-year-old Hitzfeld accepted an offer by the then German second division side VfB Stuttgart. At the Swabian side, he was part of a legendary "100 goal offense" (the goal difference that season being 100:36) and in one match against SSV 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.
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