Season 1994/95: It’s a strange season. Andreas Möller flies his legendary “Schutzschwalbe”, Stefan Effenberg sits with a tiger in his hair with Thomas Gottschalk on the show and Mehmet Scholl causes a real scandal with a fateful saying!
During his active career, Mehmet Scholl was one of the grand masters of word art. Sentences like this come from him: “I’ve never had a fight with my wife, except for the one time when she wanted to be on the wedding photo.” Or also: “The most beautiful goals are those where the ball goes in nice and flat at the top.” Thigh slaps to make people laugh. But in the 1994/95 season as a young star at FC Bayern Munich, Mehmet Scholl found out that his sayings can also go haywire. At that time, the future European champion of 1996 was asked about his life motto for an official club magazine of FC Bayern and Scholl answered in a youthful and playful way: “Hang the Greens as long as there are still trees!”
A few years later, Scholl once said about this action: “An old spontaneous saying that I borrowed. And I had murderous troubles…” You can probably say that. A member of parliament for the Greens recognized Scholl’s loose slogan as a “call to murder” and filed a complaint for defamation and hate speech. What followed was a process that on the one hand irritated the Bayern player and on the other hand pushed the limits of mental and physical stress.
Thank God there were also other representatives of the Greens these days who reacted more relaxed and, above all, more wittily to Scholl’s quote. “Pull out the front teeth of the Scholl while there are still rodents!” was one of the reactions that slowly brought the tense situation back to calmer waters. Mehmet Scholl is to be credited for answering a reporter’s question about who he would vote for after a grueling year shortly before the general election: “Green, of course. I can’t let her down! “
In the league this season there was a real duel between BVB and Werder. And so before the duel on the 29th matchday in Bremen’s packed Weser Stadium (quote from Willi Lemke: “I could have sold over 100,000 tickets”) against Borussia Dortmund Werder’s Mario Basler said confidently: “Whoever wins today will also be champion!” Bremen beat BVB 3-1 – and ended up losing out. The weeks before winning the title were marked by a small war between “loudmouth” Mario Basler and Borussia. Again and again the Bremen man teased his Dortmund colleagues and tried to increase the nervous tension at BVB. Coach Ottmar Hitzfeld was also the target of Basler’s attacks.
The prophecy of the Werder pro that Bayern could even afford a defeat due to a reassuring lead in the last game was particularly daring: “Mr. Hitzfeld doesn’t know at all that we probably won’t get the two points in Munich on the last day of the game to need.” When the tension eased after winning the championship at Dortmund, tears flowed from coach Ottmar Hitzfeld and words flowed from the players. Knut Reinhardt: “It’s great that Mario made such a fuss. That shook us up. Now he’ll probably get a tit-for-tat from his Bremen teammates.”
In Dortmund, the title win was celebrated exuberantly. After three years earlier they had complained about Nuremberg’s Wück, who with his swallow had made a significant contribution to BVB only finishing second in the table behind VfB Stuttgart, this season they benefited from the far more unsportsmanlike offense of their own man. Andreas Möller flew his famous “Protective Swallow” in the BVB game against Karlsruher SC on matchday 26. It was 0:1 that day when Dortmund’s Möller took off spectacularly in the KSC penalty area. His opponent Dirk Schuster was meters away, but referee Habermann pointed to the penalty spot. Zorc converted and in the 86th minute Sammer shot BVB to victory.
A few weeks later, Borussia became champions – one point ahead of Werder Bremen. The excitement in football Germany was huge. Möller was banned for two games (“I’m only human”) and had to pay a fine of 10,000 marks. Dirk Schuster concluded: “As a Schwalbe, I wouldn’t allow myself to be compared to Möller.”
A man caused quite a stir in Mönchengladbach. Stefan Effenberg was back from Italy and immediately the celebrated star of the Bundesliga again. After a lost bet in Thomas Gottschalk’s “Wetten, dass…?” show, the Neu-Gladbacher had a sensational tiger-look hairstyle on the RTL late-night show “Gottschalk” in September. English punk hairdresser Collin Watkins was allowed to shave the back of the football star’s head and paint a tiger’s head on it. Wife Martina was delighted with a rose tattoo in her hair. Of course, her husband was the star in the Manege Bundesliga on the coming day.
One was particularly happy about the return of the “Tiger”. In Gladbach, there was always a man sitting on the fence in those years. It was the Turk Ethem Özerenter, but everyone just called him “Manolo”. He had a brightly colored cap on his head and a large drum in front of him. He was present at every home game, even if he admitted: “But I don’t know anything about football. I only go boom-boom to cheer on the team!” When his drum broke, Stefan Effenberg spontaneously reached into his pocket and donated a new one for 300 marks. Manolo then created the legendary “Effenberg rhythm”.
(This article was first published on Saturday, September 24, 2022.)
