Helmuth Johannsen

This article deals with the soccer coach Helmuth Johannsen; on the SS functionary see Helmut Johannsen .

Helmuth Johannsen (1963)

Helmuth Johannsen (born February 27, 1920 in Hamburg ; † November 3, 1998 ibid) was a German football coach . He won the German Bundesliga championship with Eintracht Braunschweig in 1967 and became Swiss champion in 1978 with Grasshoppers Zurich .

Beginning of the coaching career

Helmuth Johannsen, who emerged from the youth of FC St. Pauli Hamburg , successfully completed the third course as a football teacher at the German Sport University in Cologne in 1950 under the direction of national coach Sepp Herberger . Colleagues included Fritz Herkenrath , Karl-Heinz Heddergott , Radoslav Momirski , Hans Rohde , Rudi Schlott , Paul Schneider, Richard Schneider and Horst Sturz.

He started his coaching career in the Oberliga Nord in the 1950/51 season at Bremerhaven 93 . Until 1954 he coached the Bremerhaveners until he moved to Holstein Kiel. In the 1956/57 season he took 2nd place in the north with Holstein Kiel. Diether Trede , former striker of the Kiel “Störche” (158 games, 37 goals), says the following about Johannsen:

“Even then, a kind of manager. He not only took care of the sporting side, but also of the players' human problems, of work and housing, and of food issues. He practiced the training almost as a science. "

In 1961 Johannsen left Kiel to take over the coaching position at 1. FC Saarbrücken . He worked there until the end of the 1962/63 season.

In the big leagues he became known as a coach who knew how to work long-term. This was later to be confirmed at Eintracht Braunschweig in the Bundesliga.

German champion 1967

Helmuth Johannsen (1965)

With the beginning of the Bundesliga in the 1963/64 round, the previous coach of 1. FC Saarbrücken , Helmuth Johannsen, took over the third in the Oberliga Nord 1962/63, Eintracht Braunschweig. Braunschweig was nominated against Hannover 96 as the third North representative for the new Bundesliga next to Hamburger SV and Werder Bremen . Together with the new coach, the two players Peter Kaack from VfR Neumünster and Hans-Georg Dulz from Hamburger SV came to Braunschweig. Johannsen, a coach type with realistic goals after a clear analysis of the club's possibilities in sporting and financial areas, had declared relegation as the goal for the club and thus also for the players and fans. With 28:32 points the 11th place was occupied after 30 games in the final table and thus the league was achieved.

The defensive performance (49 goals conceded) exceeded the effect of the storm game (36 goals scored). Ironically, the winger made his debut Klaus Gerwien on 29 December 1963 in Casablanca in the national team , not one of the series of defender Klaus Meyer , Walter Schmidt , Joachim Bäse and Kaack. For the second Bundesliga season 1964/65 reinforcements came to Lower Saxony for the storm. Lothar Ulsaß came from Arminia Hannover , and strikers Dieter Krafczyk and Erich Maas moved to Braunschweig from relegated 1. FC Saarbrücken . Eintracht improved to 9th place and scored 42:47 goals and 28:32 points. Lothar Ulsaß immediately played at a high level, he scored 12 goals and made his debut on April 24, 1965 in the game in Karlsruhe against Cyprus in the national team. Again, the highly regarded "relegation candidate" was better than his reputation.

At the beginning of May 1965 he became perhaps the only Bundesliga coach to date for the two professional teams to train simultaneously. The Kieler SV Holstein just had their most successful season since the German runner-up in 1930. The storks confidently led the then second-class Regionalliga Nord with only two points per victory, eight points ahead of FC St. Pauli . Disputes between the club management and the coach Helmut Ullmann , who was brought in at the beginning of the season, were endless, so he was fired with one match day before the end of the season. Eintracht gave their consensus that Johannsen could accompany the Kielers through the end of the season. So on Saturday, May 8th, he was still in the Bundesliga with a meaningless home win for Eintracht and on the next day, the last day of the regional league, in the 8-1 away win of the Kiel team over the Harburg lawn athletes , who from here on unstoppable Journey to the lower amateur leagues. Johannsen's team was even ten points ahead after this success, as St. Pauli took a break at home against the cellar children from the Hildesheim Association for People's Sports , who wanted to stay in the league.

For the Bundesliga promotion round, Johannsen barracked his men in the Malente sports school . Married players were occasionally allowed out, while the unmarried ones were not allowed to go out until after the last game on June 26th. Johannsen said that players shouldn't drink anything when training, especially when it is hot. In the games, the Kielers were the Regionalliga-West champion Borussia Mönchengladbach, trained by Hennes Weisweiler , with the young superstars Netzer , Heynckes and "Hacki" Wimmer , SSV Reutlingen , who kept the race against Beckenbauer - Müller - Maier - Bayern open for a long time in the south , but lost three points on the last two match days, just three points behind Bayern only second. The third opponent of the Kiel was the outsiders of Wormatia Worms from the southwest. The outstanding performance of the Kielers took place on the fifth of the six game days, when they defeated Mönchengladbach, who had already been promoted, 4-2. Overall they finished third. Johannsen returned to Braunschweig, while Franz-Josef Hönig became the only Kiel player to play in the Bundesliga: In the late Seeler era , however, he was allowed to wear the captain's armband at Hamburger SV .

In the third round of the 1965/66 Bundesliga, the younger Horst Wolter won against the previous goalkeeper Johannes Jäcker . The tactical variant of the retraining of Jürgen Moll to an offensive left defender was also carried out. Since Lothar Ulsaß was able to increase his hit rate to 17 goals and the winger Erich Maas also contributed 11 goals, at the end of the round with 49:49 goals and 34:34 points in the Bundesliga, which has now expanded to 18 teams, the 10th place was taken. Helmuth Johannsen had been able to improve the performance of the team, the balance of the second half of the season with 20:14 points proved this.

In the transfer area, the events in Braunschweig before the 1966/67 round were within the scope of the previously practiced manageability. The young striker Gerd Saborowski was brought in from Holstein Kiel , otherwise the increased level of the previous second half was relied on. After the first six games they were in first place with 9: 3 points. In fact, the “autumn championship” was celebrated after the 17th matchday with 22:12 points, tied ahead of Hamburger SV. With two defeats in a row on matchdays 30 and 31 against Hannover 96 and Karlsruher SC , the decision for the championship in the final phase was again extremely exciting. Eintracht Frankfurt was tied with 38:24, defending champion TSV 1860 Munich was only one point behind. On the next match day, May 20, 1967, Lothar Ulsaß and Erich Maas decided the race for the Braunschweiger with their goals in the 84th and 89th minute in the 2-1 home win against Borussia Mönchengladbach , because Frankfurt and 1860 Munich each lost theirs Games against Bremen and Nuremberg. With the final 4-1 home win against 1. FC Nürnberg , the 1967 German champions were finally crowned.

In the encyclopedia of German league football, part 1 from 1998, it says about the championship of Eintracht Braunschweig:

“A troop that nobody took really seriously until shortly before the end of the season, grabbed the championship title in the fourth Bundesliga season. In the end, however, the constant Eintracht laughed at the pomadic competition. 'In Braunschweig at that time everything was a little different than elsewhere in the Bundesliga,' said goalkeeper Horst Wolter with a smile about the conditions in the tranquil Lower Saxony: 'When the Cologne and other clubs were already showing up in great glitter jerseys, we were still wearing the old cotton shirts, which got smaller and smaller in the rain. '"

With the best defense in the league, with only 27 goals conceded in 34 games, a regular formation of twelve players, a consistently persistent tactic that suited the staff and the necessary physical and footballing class, Helmuth Johannsen deservedly led the team of 1st chairman Ernst Fricke to championship. With this, after four years of careful construction, he had achieved the highest goal.

Games in the European Cup of National Champions 1967/68

After winning the championship came the challenge in the European Cup in 1967/68 . After entering the second round without a fight, the opponent was the Austrian record champions SK Rapid Wien in September 1967 . Although everyday life in the Bundesliga was not going well, after the fifth matchday they only had negative points of 4: 6 points, the 2-0 home win on September 29 with goals from Wolfgang Grzyb and Saborowski made it into the quarter-finals .

There were at the beginning of the second half of 1968 the games against the Italian champions Juventus Turin . The first leg in Braunschweig ended after a deserved 3-1 lead with 3-2. In Turin, Juventus only scored a converted penalty in the 88th minute to make it 1-0 and thus forced a play-off. That took place on March 20th in Bern and Eintracht had to compete without Lothar Ulsaß. Again the men of Helmuth Johannsen managed an even game, the favored Turinians could not achieve a clear superiority. In the 56th minute, the Juves Swede Roger Magnusson scored the decisive goal to make it 1-0.

In 1968, Eintracht only finished sixth in the Bundesliga. In 1969, Eintracht was able to improve again to fourth, but in 1970, being third from bottom with the aging team, it was only three points behind in 17th place, just past relegation. With that Johannsen said goodbye to unity.

Hannover 96, Röchling Völklingen and Tennis Borussia Berlin

In the 1970/71 season, Johannsen succeeded Hans Pilz at Hannover 96 . He led the Hanoverians, 13th in the previous year, to ninth place. In the following season, 96 suffered 12 defeats in the first 15 games and was in last place. Thereupon the club's board showed him the red card and replaced him with Hans Hipp , who was able to banish the relegation specter again and led the team to 16th place in the table, three points behind to 17th place. The most prominent Hanoverians of that time included Hans-Josef Hellingrath , Hans Siemensmeyer , Rudi Nafziger , Horst Bertl , Hans-Joachim Weller , Ferdinand Keller and the young striker Willi Reimann .

In the summer of 1972 Johannsen took over SV Röchling Völklingen in the Regionalliga Südwest . He immediately led the club to second place in the table and thus in the promotion round to the Bundesliga in the summer of 1973. Rot-Weiss Essen was much better staffed with Willi Lippens , Dieter Bast , Diethelm Ferner and Wolfgang Rausch and won the promotion place.

From 1975 he worked for Tennis Borussia Berlin . In the database of Tennis Borussia the following is noted for the round 1975/76:

“In 1975 Helmut Johannsen took over the demoralized Bundesliga relegated Tennis Borussia. The coach had a good name since he led Eintracht Braunschweig to the German championship in 1967. At TeBe, too, he succeeded in getting a not-too-highly rated troop back on track: he was immediately promoted to the Bundesliga in 1976; TeBe became champions of the 2nd division north in front of the top favorite Borussia Dortmund. A contract extension did not come about because the reinforcements of the team requested by Johannsen could not be financed. During the season he announced his departure and signed in Zurich. To this day, many fans refer to Helmut Johannsen as 'the best TeBe trainer of all time'. "

Johannsen worked at TeBe u. a. with the players Ditmar Jakobs , Norbert Siegmann , Norbert Stolzenburg and Christian Sackewitz .

Grasshopper Club Zurich

After the guest appearance in Berlin, he moved to Switzerland in 1976 to the record champions there, who, however, have only become national champions once since winning the title in 1956. In 1978 he was able to celebrate winning the Swiss championship in the Hardturm Stadium, after narrowly defeating Servette Geneve and FC Basel , with GC also reaching the Swiss Cup final and League Cup final in the same season. This season, however, the successes achieved in the UEFA Cup were to be rated even higher . You made it to the semi-finals in this competition. With successes against BK Fram, Inter Bratislava, Dinamo Tiflis and surprisingly against Eintracht Frankfurt , they had reached the semi-finals and met the Corsicans from SC Bastia . Although the home game was won 3-2 goals, a narrow 0-1 defeat in Bastia ended the European Cup final dreams of the blue-whites due to the double-counting away goals in the event of a tie. In the 1978/79 European Cup , GC achieved the sensation of winning against Real Madrid . If they lost 3-1 in Madrid, the 2-0 home win was enough to make it to the quarter-finals. There was then the end of the line against the eventual title winner Nottingham Forest , who also eliminated the German champions 1. FC Cologne with coach Hennes Weisweiler in the semi-finals .

End of coaching career

Johannsen coached VfL Bochum from 1979/80 until the end of the 1980/81 season , where he replaced Heinz Höher , who had emigrated . He was 10th and 9th with the club in the Bundesliga.

Thereafter, the now 61-year-old back to Switzerland, this time went Gallen St. FC in the previous season of Willy summer training, he 1982/83 to third place in the National League A , the first time to participate in the UEFA Cup led . This was only the second participation of the club in a European cup competition, after the cup victory in 1969 , of seven participations to date. The team at that time included Jerzy Gorgoń , defender of the golden era of the Polish national team, and the future coach Christian Gross . Johannsen stayed with the club until 1985 and finally achieved fourth place with the Espenmoosern . After Johannsen, the club brought in Werner Olk , the Giesing eagle , a milder coach. But since important players lost with Martin Gisinger , Gross and Gorgoń, the ex-Bayern player was dismissed in March due to the subsequent sporting disappointment and Johannsen returned again until June 1986 . But that didn't change anything at 11th place, which he found when he returned. This time he was inherited by compatriot Uwe Klimaschefski , who had a groundsman tied to the post and players shot at him, but was soon dismissed after the lack of improvement, which put the happier Markus Frei in the limelight of the National League A for a few years.

At his hometown club FC St. Pauli Hamburg, Helmuth Johannsen appeared again for a year from 1987 to 1988 as Vice President, and until his death he was an assessor for the coaches at the DFB Federal Court.

In 1998 Johannsen died as a result of cancer after he had attended all the German national team's games at the World Cup in France that summer.

Career data

• 1950–1954: Bremerhaven 93, Oberliga Nord
• 1954–1961: Holstein Kiel, Oberliga Nord
• 1961–1963: 1. FC Saarbrücken, Oberliga Südwest
• 1963–1970: Eintracht Braunschweig, Bundesliga
• 5-6.06.1965: Holstein Kiel, Regionalliga Nord, Bundesliga promotion round
• 1970-13. November 1971: Hannover 96, Bundesliga
• 1972–1975: Röchling Völklingen, Regionalliga Südwest / 2. BL Group South
• 1975–1976: Tennis Borussia Berlin, 2nd Bundesliga North
• 1976–1979: Grasshopper Club Zurich, Switzerland
• 1979–1981: VfL Bochum, Bundesliga
• 1981–1985: FC St. Gallen, Switzerland
• 1986: FC St. Gallen, Switzerland

Private

Johannsen was married and had two sons. His son Walter Johannsen is known to the broader public from television as a sports journalist for the NDR .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ St. Galler Trainer: The sixth German , St. Galler Tagblatt , September 17, 2015

literature

• Jürgen Bitter : Germany's football. The encyclopedia. Sportverlag Berlin, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-328-00857-8 .
• Matthias Kropp: Triumphs in the European Cup. All games of the German clubs since 1955 (= AGON Sportverlag statistics, 20). AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 1996, ISBN 3-928562-75-4 .
• Matthias Weinrich: Encyclopedia of German League Football. Volume 3: 35 years of the Bundesliga. Part 1. The founding years 1963–1975. Stories, pictures, constellations, tables. AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 1998, ISBN 3-89784-132-0 .
• Matthias Weinrich: Encyclopedia of German League Football. Volume 4: 35 years of the Bundesliga. Part 2. Goals, crises & a successful trio 1975–1987. Stories, pictures, constellations, tables. AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 1999, ISBN 3-89784-133-9 .
• Matthias Weinrich: Encyclopedia of German League Football. Volume 5: 35 years of the Bundesliga. Part 3. Boom Years, Money & Stars 1987 to today. Stories, pictures, constellations, tables. AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 1999, ISBN 3-89784-134-7 .
• Matthias Weinrich: 25 years 2nd division. The second division almanac. All players. All clubs. All results. AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 2000, ISBN 3-89784-145-2 .