Ottmar Hitzfeld

Ottmar Hitzfeld (born 12 January 1949) is a German former professional footballer and manager. Over his career, he collected 25 major trophies, the bulk of them while coaching Grasshoppers, Borussia Dortmund, and Bayern Munich. As a striker, Hitzfeld won the Swiss Super League twice with Basel (1971–72 and 1972–73) and was the league’s top scorer in the 1972–73 season. He played six times for West Germany, all at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Trained as a mathematician and sports teacher, he ranks among Germany’s and the world’s most decorated coaches. As a manager, he won two Bundesliga titles with Dortmund and five with Bayern. He led Dortmund to the 1996–97 Champions League title, beating a star-packed Juventus side in the final, and repeated the feat with Bayern in 2000–01, defeating Valencia. Hitzfeld was twice named World Coach of the Year.

He is one of only seven managers to have won the European Cup or Champions League with two different clubs, alongside Ernst Happel, Luis Enrique, Pep Guardiola, José Mourinho, Jupp Heynckes, and Carlo Ancelotti. Born in Lörrach, Hitzfeld began playing in the late 1960s with TuS Stetten and FV Lörrach in Germany’s lower leagues before Swiss top-flight side Basel signed him in 1971. With Basel, he won the Swiss championship in 1972 and 1973, finishing as the league’s top scorer in the latter season, and added the Swiss Cup in 1975.

In 1973, while still at Basel, he graduated from Lörrach College as a teacher of mathematics and sports. He kept his amateur status to play at the 1972 Munich Olympics, where he featured alongside Uli Hoeneß—later Bayern’s player and general manager, who would hire him as coach in the late 1990s. A highlight of that tournament was the first ever meeting between West and East Germany; West Germany lost 2–3 and missed the semifinals, with Hitzfeld scoring one of his five tournament goals.

In 1975, aged 26, he moved to German second-division side VfB Stuttgart. There he was part of a famed “100-goal offense” (the team’s goal difference that season was 100:36) and once scored six goals in a match against SSV Jahn Regensburg, still a 2. Bundesliga record. After two years, Stuttgart won promotion to the Bundesliga in 1977; Hitzfeld had scored 33 goals in 55 league matches.

In the top flight, Stuttgart finished fourth, and Hitzfeld netted five goals in 22 appearances. After three years at Stuttgart, he returned to Switzerland, playing for Lugano from 1978 to 1980 and then Luzern, where he ended his playing career in 1983 at age 34. In summer 1983, Hitzfeld signed his first coaching contract with SC Zug, then in Switzerland’s second tier. The team won the Nationalliga B title in 1983–84, earning promotion to the top flight for the first and only time in the club’s history.

In 1984, he moved to Aarau, where he stayed four years and won his first managerial trophy, the 1985 Swiss Cup. His success attracted Grasshoppers in Zürich, and between 1988 and 1991 he collected four more trophies there: a cup win in his first season, a double the following year, and a league title defence in 1991. Hitzfeld became Borussia Dortmund’s manager in 1991. In his first season, with assistant Michael Henke—his collaborator for the next 13 years—the team finished second in the Bundesliga, earning a UEFA Cup spot.

The next season, Dortmund reached the UEFA Cup final but lost both legs to Juventus. In 1995, he won his first Bundesliga title with Dortmund, the club’s first trophy since the 1989 DFB-Pokal. He successfully defended the league title in 1995–96. The crowning achievement came in 1997: Dortmund finished third in the league but reached the Champions League final, again facing Juventus.

This time Borussia won 3–1 at Munich’s Olympiastadion, beating a side featuring Zinedine Zidane, Didier Deschamps, and Christian Vieri. For that success, Hitzfeld received his first World Coach of the Year award. However, tensions with the squad led to his being moved upstairs to sports manager, where he watched his successor, Nevio Scala, guide Dortmund to the 1997 Intercontinental Cup win over Cruzeiro. His Dortmund record: 144 wins, 63 draws, 65 losses.

In 1998, Bayern Munich hired Hitzfeld. In his first season, he led the club to the Bundesliga title by a record 15-point margin, though they lost the DFB-Pokal final to Werder Bremen on penalties. More painfully, Bayern reached the Champions League final, where they led 1–0 until Manchester United scored twice in stoppage time, snatching a stunning victory.