Speaking exclusively to GGFN, former Bayern Munich and Germany international Markus Babbel spoke on FC Hollywood, Thomas Müller and Lothar Matthäus.
Now, I am a history nerd, like a massive history nerd, and that interest becomes even greater when it is Bundesliga history.
Tör by Uli Hesse is my bible.
So I jumped at the chance to be able to interview someone who was a part of the maddest part of German football history, both on and off the pitch.
If you don’t know FC Hollywood, it was the nickname given to Bayern during the 90s, mainly due to everything going on off the pitch, whether that be the tensions between Jürgen Klinsmann and Lothar Matthäus or the lifestyle of the likes of Mario Basler or Steffen Effenberg. The off-pitch antics spread onto the pitch, with Bayern only winning the Bundesliga twice before Otmar Hitzfeld took charge.
After a season on loan at Hamburg, Babbel returned to Bayern when things started to go a bit crazy. Giovanni Trapattoni was the head coach, but quickly lost his job and was replaced by Otto Rehhagel, who also lost his job, before Trapattoni returned again and produced his famous. Both of these managers were successful outside of Munich, with Rehhagel most famously winning the Bundesliga with newly promoted Kaiserslautern before leading Greece to the EURO 2004 win. Despite this ‘FC Hollywood’ nickname being unwanted at the time, Babbel is happy to be a part of that time now:
“Now in my age, I’m proud to be part of the FC Hollywood. But in this time, I was mad. I was totally mad.”
The former defender gave his thoughts on why the likes of Trapattoni and Rehhagel failed in Bavaria:
“We had fantastic managers with Trap (Trapattoni). What a name. One of the biggest managers in this time. So he couldn’t handle us. Otto Rehhagel, one of the biggest managers in, Germany, he couldn’t handle us. The first manager who could handle us was, was (Ottmar) Hitzfeld. He was done in the late nineties. He was the first manager who could handle us. Yeah. And, but the rest, they, they got mad with us. Because we were so strange. We did so many stupid things. You can’t believe it. We were not a team. We were full of egos and, and we are the best.”
Babbel then went on to say this was why Bayern failed to win the Bundesliga during this period, with Borussia Dortmund winning the title twice in 1994-5 and 95-96, and Kaiserslautern in 97/98.
“We were not the best team, but the best players in the club. But we were not a team. And that was the reason why Dortmund could win two times and, and Kaiserslautern once (but they won) because they were better than us. We had the better player. But there were a team, they were fighting for each other. They were doing everything to have success and we didn’t do anything for, for success.”
Babbel was also part of the Germany side that won EURO 96. The story going into the tournament was that Lothar Matthäus would be left out of the squad due to his links to Bild and the leaking of information to the press. During a recent ZDF documentary about FC Hollywood, it was said by most of the players that the absence of the midfielder was the reason why they won. Babbel reiterated this point of view:
“If I watch my team. How good is this team? And one key moment there was success from Beti Vogts (head coach). He left, Lothar Matthaus at home, because Matthaus was a very, very strange character. He was very close to the newspapers, to the biggest newspaper in Germany (Bild). So every inside talk would come out, every team meeting would come out in the paper. And he left him (at home), and that (Vogts) was the winner.”
It is worth noting that Matthaus had a conspiracy theory that the decision to leave him behind was made during an international break trip to South Africa after Germany’s head coach Berti Vogts met with captain Jürgen Klinsmann and other leaders to make the decision to leave him behind.
Anyway, Babbel continued:
“Jürgen Klinsmann was, was strong. Yeah. Matthias Sammer was strong. Jürgen Kohler was strong. We had many many top players there, you know, and uh, they were full of confidence because Lothar wasn’t there. Matthaus was the best player by far in Germany in our time. He was unbelievable. He was the Diego Maradona in Germany, but he was a very strange character, not easy to handle this character. And all the other guys, they were quite small next to him, so, but he wasn’t there, so they grewn up. So there were leaders then…In a short-period, we came together as a super-strong team. We were fighting for each other. We were celebrating each other. We were talking to each other. It doesn’t matter from which team you are, we were talking, we were very close together, and that was the winner. And the winner was Berti Vogts because he left Lothar at home.”
Babbel is Munich-born and came through the Bayern academy. For Bayern, he would make 261 appearances, winning the Bundesliga three times, DFB-Pokal twice and the UEFA Cup. He would miss out on the Champions League with Bayern winning the competition the season he left and, most famously, in the 1999 final against Manchester United. In 2000, he would leave his boyhood club and move to Liverpool on a free transfer. In the early 00s, FC Hollywood was still in full swing, and this was something that annoyed Babbel at the time and was one of the reasons he left:
“And for me, I had to leave because I, I got mad in this club because every day was something in the newspaper. Every day was something in the television. Every day was something in the training…My biggest dream was always to play once in England. In the Premier League and then I had the chance at a club like Liverpool.
The German international was not the only German to move to England in the late 90s-00s. After Klinsmann’s move to Tottenham in the early 90s, Karl-Heinz Riedle would swap Dortmund for Liverpool, Dietmar Hamman would follow Babbel to Liverpool, Steffen Freund, Thomas Helmer, and Christian Ziege would also swap Germany for England.
This summer, a fellow Bavarian in Thomas Müller, is leaving Bayern after a 25-year association with the club. From a sporting point of view, most can make the argument that it was time for the 35-year-old to leave Bayern, but from a human standpoint, the way they have thrown away a club legend was questionable. Babbel holds a similar point of view:
“Müller is a bit different. He, he wants to stay in Munich till to the end. So at the moment he thinks he can still play one, two years. So the club thinks he’s not this good anymore. Fair enough. This, I have no problem with this decision, that Bayern Munich is saying it, we don’t give him a another contract. I understand this. Okay. 35 years old. The way is absolute bullshit. This is typical Bayern Munich. You have one of the biggest player ever and you can’t leave him with a celebration. He has to get it, you know. The club did so many stupid things. I can’t believe it, that Bayam Munich, one of the biggest clubs, is so mad with Thomas Muller. Just tell him straight in the face. “Look, Thomas, in our eyes, you are not good enough anymore. So we, we don’t want that you sit on the bench or maybe in the stand. This is, this is not Thomas Müller. You are one of the biggest player ever. So we want to celebrate you end of the season because, you did so many things for us…You go out of this club with a standing ovation”. And then if you still want to play, go to America, go to somewhere and then you come back to our club and then we have a look what you can do. So what is difficult on it? I, I don’t understand it, but Bayern Munich all the time is the same. Even Franz Beckenbauer, Gerd Müller they’re got a kick in the ass. And, why, what is so difficult on it? For me, I can’t believe what, what they did.”
Despite Müller’s departure in the summer, Babbel sees the 35-year-old as one of Bayern’s greatest ever players:
“Thomas Miller is, for me, one of the biggest player by Munich ever had. He’s in one range with Franz Beckenbauer, Gerd Müller. The three guys for me. Top of the top, and then you have Uli Hoeneß, Rummenigge, Robben. So, they’re all under Thomas Müller.”
After a spell in England, Babbel would return to Germany and play for VfB Stuttgart. He would play a role, albeit a small one, in this young Stuttgart team’s Bundesliga win in 2006-07. 18 months later, he would then find himself in charge of Stuttgart, whom he would lead to third place in 2008-09. This was a young Stuttgart side with Sami Khedira and Mario Gomez at the heart of it. Sadly, I was unable to ask Babbel if there are any similarities between this Stuttgart side and the one that has the chance of winning the DFB-Pokal next month. So you can imagine what he said.
GGFN | Jack Meenan
The interview was made possible by Poker Firma
About Author
