'An explosion of joy'

Hats off: Even 35 years after winning the Germany U19 championship with Bayer 04, Michael Reschke knows straight away the starting eleven he fielded as coach in the 2-0 victory in the final against FC Nürnberg. In his interview with bayer04.de, he gets into raptures when he talks about his team and the final rounds from back then. "It was an exceptional team," says the 63-year-old.

Which players brought home the first U19 title for Bayer 04 since the introduction of the competition in 1969? The following eleven players started the game in front of 5,000 spectators at the Ulrich Haberland Stadium on 11 July 1986: Andreas Deus – Ralf Job, Gerd Kühn, Robert Nikolic, Holger Gerhards – Andreas Drysch, Stefan Schwarz, Thorsten Wörsdörfer, Knut Reinhardt – Dirk Rehbein, Guido Legerlotz. Jürgen Hübner and Markus Petersen came on as substitutes.

Mr Reschke, your team back then did not go into the final rounds as title contenders. In the Round of 16 you came up against your first tough opposition...
Reschke: That's right, of the 16 clubs that took part in the final rounds we weren't amongst the favourites. We were up against a really difficult opponent in Borussia Dortmund in the first round. We drew 1-1 at Dortmund and won 2-0 in the second leg thanks to an impressive performance. That meant the first big step was taken. Then we played Karlsruher SC in the quarter-finals with a goalless draw in Karlsruhe followed by a 6-0 victory in the return match.

The semi-final brought a repeat of the previous season's final.
Reschke: Exactly, with Eintracht who were again the big favourites to take the title and we had a score to settle there. In 1985 we lost the final 4-2 after extra time where we went behind to a completely unjustified penalty after we made up a 2-0 deficit in normal time. Now we were able to take revenge – and we did that in a really surprising way. We won a spectacular first leg 5-4 and then secured a very comfortable 3-0 win in the second leg. I can remember well that Knut Reinhardt in particular had an incredibly impressive game in the 3-0 win.

The two favourites had been knocked out. What was the situation ahead of the final against Nürnberg?
Reschke: We were actually the favourites against Nürnberg but we had big problems before the final because the three really important starters Jürgen Radschuweit, Richard Mademann and Jens Tschiedel were suspended. Okay, we were quite physical in getting through to the final rounds. It could hurt playing against my team. For us, these three, who later made the step up to professional football, were hard to replace in defence. We had to rejig our defence. Ralf Job, the son of the Bayer 04 legend ‘King Richard’ Job, took over the sweeper's position and did a really good job. Our striker Dirk Rehbein shouldn't actually have played because he had a muscle injury. He wasn't able to sprint in the final and and wasn't able to run much at all – but he scored both goals. (He laughs)

Nürnberg, as champions of Bavaria, had some very talented players in their ranks including Marc Oechler and Achim Beierlorzer...
Reschke: Definitely. They also had a very good reputation in German youth football. But after the successful semi-final against Frankfurt, we were absolutely convinced that we'd win the final. And, at the end of the day, we clearly dominated the match and deservedly won 2-0. Nürnberg had plenty of respect for us because we had the reputation of being a team who could really get stuck in. At the same time, we learned our lesson from the final the year before.

In what respect?
Reschke: In 1985, there was the usual banquet with the two teams ahead of the final against Eintracht Frankfurt. While Frankfurt went to the buffet first and shovelled up the tastiest food onto their plates, we remained politely sat in our seats. We were simply too nice – perhaps on the pitch as well later on. Ahead of the final in 1986 in Leverkusen, I said to my lads at the Ramada Hotel (now the Best Western, ed.), where both teams were staying: ‘One thing is clear: When the banquets starts then we will be the first to the buffet this time. If you meet the Nürnberg players in the lift then always look them in the eye. Build yourselves up in front of them.' We wanted to make it clear to them on the night before the game that there was nothing doing for them. It worked too. After the final whistle there was an explosion of joy. Our team absolutely deserved to win this title with their exceptional team spirit.

A lot of players from that team later went on to be very successful professional footballers. We are able to see that at the time?
Reschke: Knut Reinhardt and Stefan Schwarz were definitely the absolutely exceptional players in the team. With both of them it quickly became clear that they would make it as professional players. Knut went on to win the UEFA Cup with Bayer 04 just two years later. And Stefan Schwarz went on to finish third in the 1994 World Cup with Sweden and he played 70 full internationals for his country. He played for Benfica, Arsenal, Fiorentina and Valencia. I discovered Stefan at the Algarve Cup in 1984 when he was playing with the Sweden U16s. He was the first foreign youth player signed by Bayer. That was extremely unusual at that time. When Stefan moved up from the youth section, Erich Ribbeck wanted to play him in the Reserves at first. That was out of the question for Stefan so he went back to Sweden to play for Malmö FF. I recently went for a meal with him in Lisbon and we had a fantastic evening. Jürgen Radschuweit, Jens Tschiedel, Robert Nikolic and Thorsten Wörsdörfer also had loads of talent. But, of course, that's not enough on its own. You had to take a somewhat tougher approach with one or two of them. And that definitely helped them.

Who for example?
Reschke: Back then we used to do an exceptional amount very targeted individual training – and definitely on my part with loads of pressure. That was unusual back then. Knut Reinhardt, for example, wanted to give up at Bayer 04 after the first few weeks with me as coach and change clubs. We then found a sensible compromise. And Knut later said to me our time together had very much shaped him. And Robert Nikolic, who was later very successful with Borussia Dortmund and Mainz 05, was also a very talented player but initially not necessarily able to suffer. I was very tough with him at times. But also very important: The players pushed each other. Everybody was really willing to give everything for the team. It was a dream for me to coach this group. Whenever I think back to the lads then it's always associated with lots of pride and humility.

Whose development was a positive surprise?
Reschke: Gerd Kühn is the classic example of how far you can go in football with mentality and attitude. Hardly anybody believed he'd make it. The way Gerd battled against and closed out Eintracht Frankfurt's Andreas Möller in the semi-final games was typical of his mentality. Andi Möller was the youth player in Germany and the key player in the final year before. In 1986, he was run ragged by Gerd Kühn so that his nerves were shot the end. Gerd later went on to play in the Bundesliga for KFC Uerdingen.

Between 1984 and 1988, Bayer 04 were in the finals of the Germany U19 championship for three years out of four. Can the outstanding reputation that the youth section enjoys today be traced back to then?
Reschke: Yes, you can say that. We were very dominant in German youth football for the first time. It was fantastic time. We had training sessions where we really upped the intensity and that although we almost exclusively played on shale pitches. Youth football was very important at Leverkusen back then. That was definitely due to Rainer Calmund who very much promoted youth. At that time, Bayer 04 started to be taken seriously. The first team qualified for the UEFA Cup for the first time in 1986 and we as the U19s won the German championship a year after finishing runners-up in 1985. Bayer 04 were definitely en route to establishing themselves at the top of German football – not yet in the economic sense that the club has today but driven by couple of 'mad men' who combined vision, competence and hard work.

Profile:
Michael Reschke was born in Frechen on 29 September 1957. He worked for Bayer 04 from 1979 to 2014, initially as U17 and U19 coach and later as youth head coach, head of the youth section, head of the scouting department and as general manager from 2004. He was technical director at Bayern Munich 2014 to 2017 and sporting director at VfB Stuttgart from 2017 to 2019. Reschke was technical director at FC Schalke 04 from 2019 to November 2020. Today he works for the ICM Stellar agents office based in London and there he is responsible as Head of Europe for building the European network. Players under contract at the agency include Real Madrid’s Gareth Bale, Chelsea’s Mason Mount and Rennes' top talent Eduardo Camavinga.