Jupp Heynckes celebrates its 80th birthday – a man for big moments

If it got really going to football in football, it was always relied on one: Jupp Heynckes. Sometimes as an accurate striker, sometimes as a resting pole on the coaching bench – Heynckes never came out loud, but always at the right time. He led FC Bayern Munich to the triple as the first German club and came back from retirement at the age of 72 to get the team out of a crisis. Without excitement, without outbreaks. On May 9th he celebrates his 80th birthday.

Josef “Jupp” Heynckes saw the light of day on May 9, 1945 in Mönchengladbach. As a ninth of ten children, he grew up in simple conditions. “It was my desire to become a soccer player. I did everything possible, in my youth,” Heynckes later recalled his childhood. With success: After training as a plasterer, he switched to Borussia Mönchengladbach at the age of 17.

“He was our best football player in all matters,” says Günter Netzer (80), himself club legend, about Heynckes. He celebrated his professional debut there in 1965 and, apart from a three-year guest performance at Hannover 96, remained his entire professional career at his home club. With Borussia he became a UEFA Cup winner, German champion, cup winner and twice top scorer. The striker ran 417 times for the foals and scored 295 goals-that makes him the best goal scorer in the club’s history.

Heynckes also left his mark in the national team and won the 1972 European Championship with the DFB team and the 1974 World Cup in their own country. He played a total of 39 caps and scored 14 goals.

After his active career, Jupp Heynckes started his coaching career – in Mönchengladbach, where else. At the age of 34, he was the youngest head coach in the Bundesliga history. During this time he also got his first nickname: “Osram”, named after the lamp manufacturer. According to legend, a player at the time gave him this name because Heynckes often got a bright red head when excited – just like a light bulb.

In 1987 the move to Bayern followed, with which he collected his first two national trophies as a trainer in 1989 and 1990. After a surprising termination in October 1991 – which Bavaria’s honorary president Uli Hoeneß (73) later described as described – heynckes went abroad.

After successful stations at Athletic Bilbao and CD Tenerife, Real Madrid took him. In Spain became “Osram” “Don Jupp”. During his time at Real, Heynckes experienced the first big coaching triumph on an international stage in 1998: winning the Champions League-the first for Real after more than 30 years. But just eight days after this historical success, “Don Jupp” was released by the then president.

After further stations in Portugal, Spain and Germany, Heynckes returned to Munich in 2011 for his third term – in 2009 he had intervened to Munich. Despite the most bitter defeat in the “Finale Dahoam” against Chelsea, he did not give up, remained another season and led FC Bayern to the first triple in the club’s history. “Jupp made himself immortal”, (69) this success. He is “a fantastic coach. But Jupp is above all a wonderful person, a gentleman, a role model”.

Although the coach announced its retreat after the season and rejected several lucrative offers, he had himself persuaded to come back in October 2017. “50 years of professional football are enough,” he had previously emphasized – because of his friendship with Uli Hoeneß, he changed this opinion. At the age of 72, Heynckes returned to FC Bayern for the fourth time to free the club from a difficult situation after the separation of Carlo Ancelotti (65). The plan opened, Jupp delivered as usual: he led the team to the championship with a 21 -point lead and finally retired in 2018. “He goes into history as a helper of FC Bayern in a very difficult situation” ,.

Today Jupp Heynckes enjoys his – but now really – well -deserved retirement together with his wife Iris on her farm in Schwalmtal near Mönchengladbach. You have baptized the house “Casa de los Gatos” (house of cats). In addition to the four -legged friends, chickens and fish also live there – no wonder that he was given a coi for his pond, which he called “Philippo” after the then team captain Philipp Lahm (41).

“When I looked after my animals in the morning, went for a walk with my dog, shower, swimms and then sit with my wife at the breakfast table or on the terrace, where I have no time pressure,” he described his everyday life two months after his resignation. There he could “let the soul wander. That is luxury: have time available”.

He has always preserved his down -to -earth manner. “Basically, I am grateful for this life that I had, although it was very busy and exhausting,” says Heynckes in retrospect. Large celebrations will therefore not be due for his 80th birthday. He revealed the “kicker” to the 75th: “Celebrate on the small scale more fit my nature.” Perhaps there is also a double party with his only daughter: Kerstin Heynckes has her birthday on the same day as her father and turns 57.

At least in Mönchengladbach it is celebrated. On the occasion of his round birthday, the special exhibition “Jupp Heynckes – Torjäger – Trainer – Legend”, which is dedicated to his outstanding life’s work in the service of football, opened on the occasion of his round birthday.