Jürgen Sundermann was a trainer and motivator – and led Stuttgart to the runners-up championship after a crisis at the end of the 1970s. Now the “miracle man” has died at the age of 82.

Leonberg (dpa / lsw) – The story almost sounds a bit made up, it’s that smart. But Jürgen Sundermann has repeatedly assured that that is exactly what happened. And it suited him, this fun-loving soccer player and coach. The story is about how he met his wife Monika as a player for Hertha BSC in the 1960s. Monika Nehls, as she was called back then, once stood next to the soccer field with her Karmann Ghia convertible. The technically gifted Sundermann saw them, immediately caught fire – and circled the ball in a high arc behind the seats of the red speedster.

“Of course I had to get the ball back and we were talking.” He was then married to his Monika, who later became Hans Rosenthal’s assistant in the TV show “Dalli-Dalli”, for more than half a century.

Sociable, direct – and always trying to keep you in a good mood. The former successful coach of VfB Stuttgart was like that in Berlin for almost his whole life – and that’s how German football will remember him. Sundermann died on Tuesday at the age of 82. This was announced by VfB on Wednesday.

“Jürgen Sundermann has achieved great things for VfB Stuttgart and has always combined humanity and optimism,” said VfB President Claus Vogt about the “legendary coach” of the Swabians. “We mourn with his widow Monika and his family.”

Sundermann, who particularly relied on his motivational skills, had his best time as a coach at VfB between 1976 and 1979. At that time he led the “Reds” from the second division back to the Bundesliga and there to the runners-up championship. Since then, Sundermann has borne the nickname “Miracle Man” in Stuttgart and beyond.

He played hooray football – and the fans flocked to the Neckarstadion. Sundermann, who was born in Mülheim an der Ruhr, explained that his players were all young people with “uncanny motivation”. “They only ever played forward.” At the back he had the Förster brothers, in midfield playmaker Hansi Müller, before them Dieter Hoeneß and Ottmar Hitzfeld.

Tactics and opponent analysis, on the other hand, were not his thing. “It sometimes went haywire,” admitted the former right-hand runner from Viktoria Köln and Hertha BSC, who won two Swiss championships with FC Basel.

His players were happy to be driven by him, because “joy and enthusiasm was always the most important thing for me.” He “made the eleven hot, that was Sundermann’s high mass,” said former VfB President Gerhard Mayer-Vorfelder, who died in 2015.

He was very lucky in life, Sundermann often said. If only it hadn’t been for the death of his second son Leif in 2019. Leif, a sports journalist, was an alcoholic. “The bad thing was this helplessness,” explained Sundermann. “To have to watch as your own son harms himself.”

With Sundermann Senior, the good memories remain. European champion Hansi Müller also liked to think about how the coach managed to keep the substitutes happy with his human nature. “He made everyone feel important,” said Müller. And called for humility. “You’ve turned your hobby into a job, you can be thankful for that,” he once said to disgruntled professionals. As a child of the Ruhr area, a direct approach was always important to Sundermann.

Later, however, this no longer worked. At the end of his second VfB engagement from 1980 to 1982, the team was only ninth. And when he returned in the final phase of the botched 1994/95 season, he seemed like a relic from the past to the team around Giovane Elber and Fredi Bobic.

In the meantime he had brought Hertha out of the third division, led VfB Leipzig to the Bundesliga and Sparta Prague to the Czech championship. But in 1999, after an engagement at Vorwarts Steyr in Austria, Sundermann ended his career. He later worked as a talent scout for VfB and ran the “Football Training Center (FAC) Jürgen Sundermann

“For me there is nothing more beautiful than passing on my experiences to young people,” he once said. Football will miss him.