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Chronicle
1996-1999
Looking Back on the Rehhagel Era and the Years of Transition
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Otto Rehhagel still visits Bremen from time to time—the city where he coached SV Werder for over 14 years. He often sits in his favorite café, recalling all those wonderful memories from his successful period by the Weser, when he and manager Willi Lemke shaped a top team season after season. The results of this era: championship titles, cup successes, and countless sensations for SV Werder Bremen.
The Rehhagel era began in the second division. Just a year earlier, despite having a number of notable players, Werder were relegated. About two-thirds of the way into the 1980/81 season, Otto Rehhagel took over as coach after Kuno Klötzer was forced out by illness. Werder were top of the league and went on to secure immediate promotion at season’s end.
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Right from his first game, Rehhagel proved himself a coach with, as he put it, “odd ideas.” For Werder’s trip to Berlin to face Hertha at the Olympic Stadium with 72,000 in attendance, Rehhagel told club treasurer Karl-Heinz Hohnhorst the night before, “Mr. Hohnhorst, if it’s not working, I’ll throw our little Finn Pasi Rautiainen into the deep end.” And that’s exactly what happened: Rautiainen came on as a sub and scored the 2-1 winning goal.
Rehhagel, with his golden touch and the style of play he established in the following years—often called “controlled offensive”—worked alongside Lemke to build a Werder team that, until the mid-1990s, remained Germany’s most successful club besides Bayern Munich. He integrated stars like Rudi Völler, Karl-Heinz Riedle, and Rune Bratseth, and even worked well with strong personalities like Mario Basler.
“The Successes of the 80s and 90s Were Sensational”
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In 1988, Rehhagel and company lifted the German championship shield for the first time. DFB-Pokal wins, a European Cup Winners’ Cup victory, and another championship (1993) followed. Not to mention that Werder were the first German club to qualify for the eight-team group phase of the new Champions League (1993/94), and celebrated “Werder miracles” against clubs like RSC Anderlecht (1993) and SSC Napoli (1989).
Rehhagel himself called these successes “sensational,” as they were achieved “with very modest financial resources.”
A year after the second championship, Rehhagel departed after 14 years as coach. For the 1995/96 season, he joined Bayern Munich, taking Austrian playmaker Andreas Herzog with him.
After Rehhagel’s departure, Werder’s period of major success ended for a few years. Instead of finishing near the top as before, Bremen usually ended up in mid-table. Coaches Aad de Mos, Dixie Dörner, and Wolfgang Sidka followed Rehhagel. Felix Magath then took over and also achieved only a mid-table finish in his first season. During the 1998/99 season, things took a sharp downturn. President Dr. Franz Böhmert, Klaus-Dieter Fischer, and Manfred Müller resigned under the strain of poor results in the second half of the season, paving the way for the club’s restructuring. Manager Willi Lemke also stepped down, though the leadership team later returned in new roles in the club and its GmbH & Co. KGaA, sitting on the supervisory board, board of directors, or management.
Jürgen L. Born was appointed as new president and later chairman of the management board. Before these board-level resignations, it had already been decided to change the coach. After a defeat against direct relegation rival Frankfurt, Felix Magath was dismissed. Amateur-team coach Thomas Schaaf took over. Klaus Allofs also joined the four-member board (later the management team in 2004) and became responsible for professional football.
With three wins in the last four games, Werder avoided relegation. Shortly after securing survival, Bremen even celebrated a DFB-Pokal triumph, beating Bayern Munich on penalties. Werder qualified for the UEFA Cup, and a new era beckoned.
More information about the Rehhagel era and Werder's history can be found in Arnd Zeigler’s book “Lebenslang grün-weiß.”
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SV Werder Bremen
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