Hansi Flick: Did you know?
Hansi Flick is the new FC Barcelona coach. The third German to take charge of the side is one of just two European managers who can boast the sextuple of trophies in the same calendar year.
1- Hans-Dieter Flick was born on 24 February 1965 and will therefore turn 60 next year. He was born in Heidelberg, a city of 150,000 that lies some 340 km away from Munich, where he was both a player and coach.
2- He started out at local club SV Sandhausen and was snapped up by Bayern Munich at the age of 20. He went on to play over 100 games in the Bundesliga, winning four consecutive titles and also reaching the European Cup Final in 1987, where the Bavarians were beaten by FC Porto.
3- His first coach at Bayern was Udo Lattek, the same man who some years earlier had been in charge of Barça (1981-83). Lattek managed Bayern for two different periods (1969-1975 and 1983-1987) and would also coach Flick when they met again at FC Köln.
4- At Bayern, Flick played under another coach that served in La Liga, Jupp Heynckes (1987-90), and in Cologne he got to work with Erich Rutemöller (1990-91) and Jörg Berger (1992).
5- Injury meant he had to retire from active playing duty when he was just 28, having amassed 148 Bundesliga appearances from his time at Bayern Munich (1985-90) and Köln (1990-92).
6- Despite his playing career being cut short, at Bayern he got to be in the same dressing room as players of the ilk of Jean-Marie Pfaff, Lothar Matthäus, Dieter Hoeness, Klaus Augenthaler, Andreas Brehme and Jürgen Kohler, and his team-mates at Köln included Bodo Illgner and Pierre Littbarski.
7- As an international coach, he is best known for his role at the helm of the German team at the 2022 World Cup. However, he also assisted Joachim Löw from 2008 to 2014, when the team reached the Final of Euro 2008, the semifinal of the 2010 World Cup (losing both times to Spain) and the semis of Euro 2012 before winning the 2014 Would Cup thanks to that famous 7-1 demolition of hosts Brazil in the semis before beating Leo Messi’s Argentina in the final.
8- Technically, the first game of elite football that he ever managed was the 3-2 defeat of Portugal in the Euro 2008 quarter finals, when he stood in for the suspended Löw. Schweinsteiger, Klose and Ballack scored the goals that day.
9- Miroslav Klose, the highest goalscorer in World Cup history, would later serve as his assistant at Bayern Munich in the 2020/21 season.
10- Hansi Flick is best remembered for leading Bayern to the sextuple in 2020, matching Josep Guardiola’s achievement with Barça in 2009. Curiously, Guardiola would later go on to manage Bayern and now Flick is coming to Barça.