“Bottle empty” is 25 years old: when Giovanni Trapattoni got angry

But he became legendary in German-speaking countries with a rant. On Friday marks the 25th anniversary of the press conference in which the then coach of Bayern Munich castigated the professional attitudes of some professionals with sayings such as “empty bottle”. Munich. “Back then it was a tsunami that swept over German football,” said Hörwick, media director at the time, in retrospect.

The verbal outburst in the press conference on March 10, 1998, two days after Bayern’s 0-1 draw at FC Schalke 04, which had exacerbated the sporting crisis in Munich, lasted three and a half minutes.

The Italian coach had been criticized by some Bayern pros for an allegedly too defensive style of play. In particular, he hit back against the German internationals Mario Basler, Mehmet Scholl and Thomas Strunz despite language difficulties in a special “trap German”. “What do Struuunz allow?” was a core sentence that subsequently became a cult. “I’m done,” he said at the end and disappeared.

Hoeneß blundered with wine

Two days earlier, after the Schalke defeat, Trapattoni “gave a similar speech at the team hotel. The difference was that the bottle wasn’t empty, it was full,” as Hörwick explains. There was a bottle of wine on the table. “Giovanni waved his hand and knocked over the bottle. And Uli Hoeneß was spattered with red wine from top to bottom.” Everyone in the room felt, “Trapattoni is angry, terribly angry.” But it all happened internally.

A piece of German football history in the video:

Hörwick hoped that the coach would have calmed down after a short stay at home. But when, in contrast to other press conferences, he dug out several handwritten notes, the press spokesman suspected that something could happen.

Hörwick even considered intervening during the speech and stopping Trapattoni: “I seriously considered pulling him away twice, but several television cameras were running, that didn’t work.”

A legend was born

The popularity of the “Maestro”, who will be 84 years old on Friday in a week, did not detract from that. On the contrary. “Honestly, I could never have imagined that such a press conference would still be so popular after 20 years,” said Trapattoni on the occasion of his 80th birthday. “One explanation could be the tragic and unexpected aspect of the press conference. Nobody ever expected such a reaction from a Bayern coach,” he said.

Trapattoni is one of the most successful coaches in the world. “Trap” won 21 national and international titles after having already celebrated seven triumphs as a player. He led Juventus to six Italian championships (1977, 1978, 1981, 1982, 1984, 1985), then struck with Inter Milan (1989), Bayern Munich (1997) and Benfica Lisbon (2005) and led Salzburg to the first in 2007 Championship title in the Red Bull era.

As Italian team boss (2000 – 2004), on the other hand, he was not able to celebrate any great successes. At the 2002 World Cup he failed with the “Squadra Azzurra” in the round of 16, two years later at the European Championship the Italians were eliminated in the group phase. In the fall of his coaching career, he looked after the Irish from 2008 to 2013, whom he led to the 2012 European Championships in Poland and the Ukraine.