Dettmar Cramer (soccer coach)

Dettmar Cramer
Dettmar Cramer 1963 (right)
Personnel
birthday	April 4, 1925
place of birth	Dortmund ,  Germany
date of death	17th September 2015
Place of death	Reit im Winkl ,  Germany
size	161 cm
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
	ÖSG Viktoria 08 Dortmund
	Germania Wiesbaden
Stations as a trainer
Years	station
	Teutonia Lippstadt
	VfL Geseke
	FC Paderborn
	TuS Eving-Lindenhorst
at least 1946	TuS Rot-Weiss Peckelsheim
1948-1949	BV Bad Lippspringe
1964-1967	Germany (assistant coach)
1971-1974	Egypt
1974	Hertha BSC
1974-1975	United States
1975-1977	FC Bayern Munich
1977-1988	Eintracht Frankfurt
1978-1980	Saudi Arabia
1978-1980	Al-Ittihad
1980-1982	Aris Saloniki
1982-1985	Bayer 04 Leverkusen
1984-1985	Malaysia
1997	Thailand
1 Only league games are given.

Dettmar Cramer (born April 4, 1925 in Dortmund ; † September 17, 2015 in Reit im Winkl ) was a German football player and coach .

Professional life

Beginnings and detours to journalism

Cramer's football career began at ÖSG Viktoria 08 Dortmund and Germania Wiesbaden . During a youth course in 1941, at the age of 16, he met Sepp Herberger , who became his sponsor. Cramer's early career as a coach and player coach led him to the clubs Teutonia Lippstadt , VfL Geseke , FC Paderborn , TuS Eving-Lindenhorst and TuS Rot-Weiss Peckelsheim . From the turn of the year 1948/49 to June 30, 1963, he was the head coach of the West German Football Association in Duisburg .

In between he tried to gain a foothold in journalism . He became the first editor in the field of sports at the Second German Television . However, it only kept him there for three months. In his own words, he missed direct contact with football. Instead, he went to Japan for three years to return to work as a football teacher.

Time at the DFB and as a football development assistant

On January 1, 1964, he returned to the German Football Association . Among other things, he was assistant to Helmut Schön . In this position he also accompanied the football world championship in 1966 , together with Udo Lattek . After the World Cup in 1966, disagreements with Schön were also partly responsible for Cramer's departure from the national team's coaching staff.

However, he stayed with the DFB until June 30, 1974, which, as was customary at the time, made him available to FIFA as a development worker and for other purposes. During this time, Cramer was deployed in around 70 countries and thus earned the reputation of being a “globetrotter”, which was often quoted later.

From 1971 to 1974 he served as the national coach of Egypt . There he had no success in the qualifications for the Olympic Games and the African Championships in 1972. At the African Championships in Egypt in March 1974, he was only eliminated with the team in the semifinals against the then zenith national team from Zaire , today's South -Kongo , out, but prevailed 4-0 in the game for third place against the national team from Northern Congo .

In the service of the technical committee of FIFA, he then watched games of the 1974 World Cup in Germany. In 1975 he was succeeded by the German Burkhard Pape in the Egyptian national team .

Training at Hertha BSC and coach of the US national team

Over the years Cramer had received several offers from the Bundesliga , which he had always rejected. For the 1974/75 season he then came to an agreement with Hertha BSC . At the beginning of January he signed a three-year contract that should begin with the 1974/75 season. However, he went down in Bundesliga history as a coach with the shortest term of office (as of 06/2013): he dissolved his contract after the first training session, which was on July 9th.

According to the news magazine Spiegel , he had refused to work with Wolfgang Holst, who was involved in the Bundesliga scandal and had been banned by the DFB . When he wanted to chair the subsequent press conference in which Cramer was to be presented, he resigned from his contract. Officially, he had "compelling personal reasons" announced. Otherwise it was said that the transfer requests of Cramer, who demanded five major reinforcements, were only insufficiently processed. The only new additions were the 192-centimeter “radio tower” Uwe Kliemann and the Swedish national player Benno Magnusson, who came from 1. FC Kaiserslautern in exchange for Johannes Riedl . In addition, only 13 players ready for the Bundesliga were under contract. On July 12th, Hertha announced that the former Dutch national coach Georg Keßler , often called "Sir" because of his good manners and well-groomed appearance, would receive a two-year contract with a monthly salary of DM 12,500 (less than Cramer, as it was called) . But the whole thing went back and forth a little; Cramer's resignation from his resignation seemed more and less realistic.

Cramer was soon hired as the new national coach of the USA for four years. Before the end of the month, he lectured in New York on the reality of soccer in what was then still the "land of unlimited possibilities" and his challenge of creating a national team and an Olympic selection for Montreal in 1976. He was promised an annual salary of $ 100,000 for this - at the time that was 260,000 German marks . On the return flight from his visit to the final of the 1974 World Cup in Munich, US Association President Jimmy McGuire raved: “Wouldn't it be great if we could get Cramer to work in the USA? It would be the best that could happen to football in our country. "

Cramer was only supposed to sit on the bench of the American national team for two games: in early September the USA lost two games against Mexico 1: 3 and 0: 1 in Monterrey and Dallas. In January he suddenly followed the call of the reigning title holder in the European Cup to Munich. The US association wanted to claim damages of up to $ 10 million for breach of contract, until it was determined that no written contract existed.

European cup triumphs with FC Bayern

On January 16, 1975, Cramer became head coach of Bayern Munich . At the beginning he was heavily criticized. His sober manner differentiated him very much from his predecessor, the media man Udo Lattek , which irritated both the board and the fans. In addition, the US association was dissatisfied with the surprising departure of its head coach and indicated that it would have the contract terminated checked. The name Max Merkel , who coached the neighboring club TSV 1860 Munich, kept appearing as a possible successor. The fact that Cramer survived this difficult phase was mainly thanks to the leading player Franz Beckenbauer , whom Cramer once saved from being expelled from the DFB youth team at the DFB.

With Bayern, Cramer won the European Cup in 1975 and 1976 . In 1976 he became world cup winner . Since the FCB had missed the German championship, however, he was finally forced to say goodbye. In December 1977 the club made an exchange deal with Eintracht Frankfurt : Cramer switched to the Main, Gyula Lóránt came to the Isar. However, neither of the two clubs was happy with it: FC Bayern was only twelfth in the table in the 1977/78 season (the club's worst placement in the Bundesliga to date), and the Frankfurters only came up with average performances. Cramer's involvement with Eintracht ended on June 30, 1978.

Saudi Arabia and return to the Bundesliga

From autumn 1978 to December 1981 he worked in Saudi Arabia as a national coach and at Club Al-Ittihad . From December 1981 to May 1982 he coached the Greek club Aris Saloniki .

For the 1982/83 season Cramer returned to the Bundesliga as coach of Bayer 04 Leverkusen . During his three-year tenure, Bayer reached a single-digit place in the table for the first time in 1983/84 . When this success was not repeated in the following season, he left the club and the Bundesliga.

Japan

After his time in the Bundesliga, he still worked on a few stations abroad, including back in Japan. As advisor to the Japanese coaches, Cramer held a key position in the hitherto greatest success of the Japanese national soccer team , the bronze medal at the 19th Olympic Games in Mexico , in which Japan defeated hosts Mexico 2-0 in the game for third place. In Japan, Cramer is still considered the founder of modern football. In 2005 he was inducted into a first group in the Japanese Football Hall of Fame . Until the 2000s, he also regularly went on lecture tours in the country.

In 2002 Cramer announced that he was now retired.

Private

Cramer was first lieutenant of the paratroopers during World War II .

He was married twice. He had met his second wife Anna Marie during a stay abroad in Bangkok . It was rumored in the contemporary press that Cramer had accepted Bayern Munich's offer to do his wife a favor. She wanted the family, which included a son who was almost of age at the time, to finally settle down.

Cramer lived with his family in Reit im Winkl in Bavaria. He died there on September 17, 2015 at the age of 90. According to information from Japan, he last suffered from cancer. His grave is in the Duisburg forest cemetery .

Awards

In recognition of his commitment abroad, Cramer received two honorary professorships, and he was also awarded the Federal Cross of Merit. Emperor Hirohito personally awarded him the Order of the Sacred Treasure third class for his commitment as coach of the national team on the occasion of the 1968 Olympic Games . In 1976 he was named Kicker Trainer of the Year by the specialist magazine kicker . The Japanese Football Association presented him in 1996 with the award for special achievements. Furthermore, Cramer was named honorary chief of the Mohicans and Sioux .

In 2013 Dettmar Cramer was awarded the honorary prize for his life's work by the “ German Football Ambassador ” initiative .

Trivia

Because of his meticulous work, Cramer was called a "football professor"; because of his height of only 1.61 m he was nicknamed " Napoleon ". He also had himself photographed in a suitable costume by Diana Sandmann, Franz Beckenbauer's girlfriend at the time . Sepp Maier jokingly called him "running meter". In his youth, Cramer was also a boxer.

At the beginning of March 2009, the Federal Association of German Volksbanks and Raiffeisenbanks e. V. a TV campaign in which Dettmar Cramer can also be seen in short clips. The motto of the spot was "Everyone has something that drives them" and was designed by the Berlin agency Heimat. In addition, ten portrait films were developed, which were only distributed on the Internet. In the several-minute films, the protagonists of the actual campaign told from their lives. In this context, Cramer explained how he brought football to Japan. In January 2010, the Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken commercial was voted the most successful commercial of 2009 by horizont.net readers.

literature

• As long as better is possible, good is not enough , detailed interview in: RevierSport 27/2012, p. 52 f.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Note in interview in: Reviersport 27/2012.
2. ↑ TuS Rot-Weiss Peckelsheim , report on nw.de from May 24, 2012, accessed on August 21, 2020
3. ↑ Everything for Hertha , Der Spiegel , February 10, 1975
4. ↑ Heinz Beyer: Cramer not to Hertha: The wishes were not fulfilled , Hamburger Abendblatt , July 10, 1974
5. ↑ Alex Yannis: Cramer of Germany Signs a 4-Year Contract to Push Development of Soccer in This Country , New York Times , July 28, 1974
6. ↑ Uwe Jean Heuser, Marc Brost: Football: The gentle godfather , Die Zeit , June 1, 2006
7. ^ Dietrich Schulze-Marmeling: Strategists of the game, Verlag Die Werkstatt, 2005, page 360, ISBN 3-89533-475-8 .
8. ↑ Dettmar Cramer , in: www.transfermarkt.de.
9. ↑ Cramer, Dettmar (* 1925) ク ラ マ ー. デ ッ ト マ ー ル, football coach ( memento from March 4, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), German-Japanese culture of remembrance.
10. ↑ Ulrike John: The "Napoleon" of football turns 80. In: stern.de , April 4, 2005.
11. ↑ Avoided treason . In: Der Spiegel, issue 46/1968, 22nd year, p. 122.
12. ↑ DFB mourns Dettmar Cramer dfb.de, accessed on September 19, 2015.
13. ↑ 'Father of Japanese soccer' Cramer dies at 90 , The Japan Times, September 18, 2015.
14. ↑ Boris Hermann: Coach Dettmar Cramer - A Napoleon on a world tour . In: spiegel.de, July 8, 2005.
15. ↑ Prize Winner 2013, Honorary Prize 2013. In: fussballbotschafter.de. Archived from the original on October 30, 2013 ; Retrieved May 24, 2013 . 
16. ↑ horizont.net .

Web links

Commons : Dettmar Cramer  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Dettmar Cramer in the catalog of the German National Library
• Dettmar Cramer in the Japan Soccer Archive (English)