As a youth player, he made the step up to the first team and played one or two games in the GDR Oberliga. The midfielder is turned into a right-back at his next club Union Berlin. That remains his usual position with a few exceptions.
Bayer 04 boss Reiner Calmund becomes aware of the fast, dribbling right-back at a Union Berlin game when he was actually watching a different player. ‘Riete’, as his friends called him, joined Bayer 04 Leverkusen in 1994 and he stayed for three years. In those three years, he had three different coaches in Dragoslav Stepanovic, Erich Ribbeck and Christoph Daum but he was only more frequently in the starting line-up under Erich Ribbeck.
He makes a total of 31 appearances for Bayer 04 but doesn’t score. At the same time, he plays a significant role in probably the most important goal for Bayer 04 up to that point. When it comes to the relegation clash with FC Kaiserslautern at the Ullrich Haberland Stadium on 18 May 1996, he is given a special role by the caretaker coach Peter Hermann – he is to mark out the Kaiserslautern playmaker Uwe Wegmann and get involved with attacks. On 82 minutes, he receives the ball from captain Rudi Völler, tries his luck from 22 metres out with the “only decent shot with the instep in my career” (Riete quote) that sends the ball in the direction of the goal. The Kaiserslautern goalkeeper Andreas Reinke can only parry the shot and Markus Münch fires the ball into the back of the net on the rebound for the crucial equaliser. The rest is history.
After the following season under Christoph Daum with just two Bundesliga appearances from the bench, Riete joins Fortuna Düsseldorf in 1997. Then he becomes a German football journeyman. Up to the end of his career in 2009 he plays for SC Freiburg, VfL Bochum, Rot-Weiß Oberhausen, MSV Duisburg, Holstein Kiel and Wuppertaler SV.
Mike now lives in Leipzig, in charge of the company Subline Sports and is a co-owner of the soccer school Kick’n Body. He still plays for our Veterans team when he has the time.
Dear Mike, all the best on your 50th birthday! Please keep your ‘Berliner brogue’ and stay healthy.
HERE is an in-depth profile on Mike Rietpietsch at bayer04.de.
Hans Sarpei was born on 28 June 1976 in Tema, Ghana, and came to Germany with his parents at the age of three, where he grew up in Cologne. Even before he was born, his mother and father worked in Hamburg in the import-export sector. There they met an older man who introduced them to German culture and supported them. Out of gratitude, Hans was later given his first name, although this man died before he was born. Hans comes from a sporting family; his older brother Edward and his nephews Hans Nunoo Sarpei and Kingsley Sarpei were or are also professional footballers.
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On 3 June 1953, Hans-Josef (‘Sepp’) Kretschmann became the fifth coach in the history of Bayer 04 Leverkusen. Born in Allenstein, East Prussia, on 21 March 1902, the football coach first studied to become a teacher before later switching to football. He took over the Werkself from Franz Strehle, under whom the team twice managed to stay in the 1st Oberliga West. However, Strehle did not extend his contract in Leverkusen after these two very successful years.
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After promotion to Bundesliga North 2 in the summer of 1975, Bayer 04 are fighting relegation just eight months later. The club expects full commitment from everyone in this precarious situation. Promotion coach Manfred Rummel is to give up his main job as a teacher at the Mülheim special school and become a full-time coach at Bayer 04. The coach, who is very popular with the team, does not see himself in a position to fulfil the club's request. Despite a 2-0 home win against SpVgg Erkenschwick, Manfred Rummel is put on gardening leave by "mutual agreement".
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Bayer 04, already been promoted to the 1st Oberliga West, played friendly after friendly in the second half of May 1951. And that continued throughout the following month.
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Jacek Krzynowek was born on 15 May 1976 in Kamiensk, Poland, and grew up as a typical country boy. He spent his childhood less in structured training sessions and more on simple pitches, where he spent hours playing football with older boys. He realised early on that he had exceptional shooting power and enormous stamina. But for a long time, he didn't appreciate just how much talent he had. While others dream of a great career, professional football initially seems like a distant world to him that he only knows from television.
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