Birthday boys of the month: Josef Nehl – Dirk Schlegel

Josef ‘Jupp’ Nehl was born in Aachen on 13 June 1961. He signs for VfL Bochum in 1986 after playing for Jülich 10 and Victoria Köln. During the 1991/92 season, he follows the former Bochum coach Reinhard Saftig to Bayer 04 and scores in his first Bundesliga match for the Werkself at Kaiserslautern to level at 1-1. He makes a total of 56 Bundesliga appearances, scores five goals and is part of the Bayer 04 Leverkusen team to win the DFB Cup in 1993.

He was very versatile and could play in offensive and defensive midfield as well as a centre-forward. He sometimes even played as a sweeper. That experiment ended after eight minutes in the home game against Borussia Mönchengladbach on 8 April 1995 – 'Jupp' was shown a red card for a professional foul and he thereby holds the record in our Bundesliga history for the fastest dismissal. Nevertheless, Bayer 04 went on to win 3-1 with ten men in the first game after Dragoslav Stepanovic under caretaker coach Peter Hermann.

Today ,'Jupp' is the CEO of Sportcast GmbH, a 100% subsidiary of the DFL that produces the TV base signal for all matches in the top two divisions plus DFB Cup games. Many happy returns on your 60th birthday.

Bayer 04 TV brings you highlights from Josef 'Jupp' Nehl's time under the Bayer Cross. Click HERE for the video.

Schlegel and the escape with his good friend Götz

In November 1983, the two friends and teammates Dirk Schlegel and Falko Götz used a shopping trip with their GDR team the FC Dynamo Berlin in Belgrade to escape to the Federal Republic of Germany. They both joined our club and played for Bayer 04 in the Bundesliga after a one-year ban. Dirk is in the starting line-up after the expiry of his ban at Bielefeld on 3 November 1984 – as the left-back.

He was two-footed and had a quality that is rarely used by players today: a very long throw-in. Dirk regularly took throw-ins that projected the ball with regularity and great precision into the six-yard box, often causing great confusion in the opposition box. His first season under Dettmar Cramer went well for him but the season afterwards he rarely played under Erich Ribbeck. He made a total of 24 Bundesliga appearances and scored four goals. After another year under the Bayer Cross, he joined VfB Stuttgart in November 1985 and and then moved onto the new Berlin Bundesliga club Blau-Weiß 90 in the summer of 1986.

After his playing career, he was the U19 coach at Hertha Berlin for over ten years. Since November 2018 he has headed the scouting department at Holstein Kiel and from July 2021 he will receive energetic support from another former Bayer 04 player: Sven Demandt – employed by Kiel's CEO Uwe Stöver who won the DFB Cup with Bayer 04 in 1993. Dirk is 60 on 14 June. Many happy returns.

Bayer 04 TV brings you highlights from Dirk Schlegel’s time under the Bayer Cross. Click HERE for the video.