Erich Ribbeck (born 13 June 1937) is a German former professional
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
player and manager, best known for coaching in the
Bundesliga
The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germany's primary footba ...
. In 1988, he won the
UEFA Cup
A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store Solid, solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, porcela ...
as manager of
Bayer Leverkusen
Bayer 04 Leverkusen Fußball GmbH, also known as Bayer 04 Leverkusen (), Bayer Leverkusen, or simply Leverkusen, is a professional football club based in Leverkusen in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The club competes in the Bundesliga, th ...
, the first title in the club's history.
Club career
As a player, Ribbeck had a career spanning most of the 1950s into the early 1960s with
SSV 1904 Wuppertal, which has since merged with ''TSG Vohwinkel'' to form
Wuppertaler SV
Wuppertaler SV is a German association football club located in Wuppertal, North Rhine-Westphalia. The city was founded in 1929 out of the union of a number of smaller towns including Elberfeld, Barmen, Vohwinkel, Cronenberg and Ronsdorf – e ...
. He later spent the rest of his career playing for
Viktoria Köln
Viktoria usually refers to Viktoria, a name which is the same as Victoria (name), but may also refer to:
Places
* FK Viktoria Stadion, stadium of Viktoria Žižkov
* Viktoria-Luise-Platz, building in Berlin
* Viktoriastadt, now known as Victoria ...
. The highest level Ribbeck played was the
Oberliga, part of the first tier of Germany which was then split into five regional divisions.
Managerial career
Club
His very first coaching position he held at the age of 30 in 1967–68, when he took
Rot-Weiss Essen
Rot-Weiss Essen is a German association football club based in Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia. The club currently plays in the 3. Liga, at the Stadion an der Hafenstraße.
The team won the DFB-Pokal in 1953, and the German championship in 195 ...
to the second place in the western division of Germany's Level 2 league and thus to the promotion tournament, where the club ended up losing out against
Hertha Berlin
Hertha, Berliner Sport-Club e. V., commonly known as Hertha BSC (), and sometimes referred to as Hertha Berlin, Hertha BSC Berlin, or simply Hertha, is a German professional football club based in the locality of Westend (Berlin), Westend of the ...
.
The next ten years he shared evenly with engagements with
Eintracht Frankfurt
Eintracht Frankfurt e.V. () is a professional sports club based in Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany. It is best known for its football club, which was founded on 8 March 1899. The team is currently playing in the Bundesliga, the top tier of the Germa ...
and
1. FC Kaiserslautern. In the Bundesliga these clubs remained on mediocre levels during his tenure. With Kaiserlautern he reached the German Cup final of 1976, losing 0–2 to
Hamburger SV
Hamburger Sport-Verein e.V. (), commonly known as Hamburger SV () or Hamburg (), is a German sports club based in Hamburg, with its largest branch being its football section. Though the current HSV was founded in June 1919 from a merger of three ...
.
He achieved his only trophy when he won the
UEFA Cup
A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store Solid, solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, porcela ...
with
Bayer Leverkusen
Bayer 04 Leverkusen Fußball GmbH, also known as Bayer 04 Leverkusen (), Bayer Leverkusen, or simply Leverkusen, is a professional football club based in Leverkusen in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The club competes in the Bundesliga, th ...
. In the finals, Leverkusen came back from 0–3 away to
Espanyol
Reial Club Deportiu Espanyol de Barcelona (; "Royal Spanish Sports Club of Barcelona"), commonly known as Espanyol, is a professional sports club based in Barcelona, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top tier of the Spanish football league sy ...
to win the eventual penalty shoot-out at home.
He was also runner-up in the German Championship of 1993 with
Bayern Munich
Fußball-Club Bayern München e. V. (FCB, ), also known as FC Bayern (), Bayern Munich, or simply Bayern, is a German professional sports club based in Munich, Bavaria. It is best known for its professional men's football team, which pla ...
.
International
Ribbeck was originally considered as a candidate for the national team manager role after the resignation of
Helmut Schön
Helmut Schön (15 September 1915 – 23 February 1996) was a German football player and manager. He is best remembered for his exceptional career as manager of the West German national team in four consecutive World Cup tournaments, including ...
in 1978. Instead,
Jupp Derwall
Josef "Jupp" Derwall (10 March 1927 – 26 June 2007) was a German professional football manager and player. He was head coach of the West Germany national team between 1978 and 1984, winning the UEFA Euro 1980 and reaching the final of the 1982 ...
was selected and it was not until 20 years later on 9 September 1998
that Ribbeck emerged from retirement to take over the
German national team when other candidates had declined. At 61, he was the oldest appointee to the job.
Ribbeck's two-year tenure marked the worst period in the modern history of Germany's national side. Ribbeck resigned on 21 June 2000 after a string of disappointing results culminating in a group stage exit from
Euro 2000
The 2000 UEFA European Football Championship, also known as Euro 2000, was the 11th UEFA European Championship, a football tournament held every four years and organised by UEFA, the sport's governing body in Europe.
The finals tournament was ...
.
During that tournament, Ribbeck had rejected calls from
Oliver Bierhoff
Oliver Bierhoff (born 1 May 1968) is a German football official and former player who played as a forward. He has previously served as the national team director of the German Football Association.
A tall, strong and prolific goalscorer, Bierho ...
,
Oliver Kahn
Oliver Rolf Kahn (; born 15 June 1969) is a German football executive and former professional player who played as a goalkeeper. He started his career in the Karlsruher SC Junior team in 1975. Twelve years later, Kahn made his debut match in t ...
,
Jens Nowotny
Jens Daniel Nowotny (born 11 January 1974) is a German former professional footballer who played as a defender.
He played in nearly 300 official games with Bayer Leverkusen in one full decade, helping them reach the 2002 Champions League final ...
and
Mehmet Scholl
Mehmet Tobias Scholl (born Mehmet Tobias Yüksel; 16 October 1970) is a German football manager and former player.
He played most of his career as an attacking midfielder for Bayern Munich. During his career he won the UEFA Cup in 1996 (scoring ...
to drop aging sweeper
Lothar Matthäus
Lothar Herbert Matthäus (; born 21 March 1961) is a German association football, football pundit and former professional player and manager. After captaining Germany national football team, West Germany to victory in the 1990 FIFA World Cup whe ...
. Ribbeck had insisted that Matthäus would earn his 150th cap, while threatening any rebellious national team members with a fine or exclusion from the squad.
His results as Germany's coach were ten wins, six draws, and eight losses, the worst managerial performance of all time for a coach of the Germany national team.
Personal life
Ribbeck shares his residence between
Pulheim
Pulheim (; Ripuarian language, Ripuarian: ''Pullem'') is a town in the Rhein-Erft-Kreis, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
Since the 1920s, a large substation of the ''Rheinisch-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk AG'' (RWE) is located at Pulheim. I ...
and
Tenerife
Tenerife (; ; formerly spelled ''Teneriffe'') is the largest and most populous island of the Canary Islands. It is home to 43% of the total population of the archipelago. With a land area of and a population of 978,100 inhabitants as of Janu ...
, Spain.
Managerial statistics
Honours
Manager
;Bayer Leverkusen
*
UEFA Cup
A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store Solid, solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, porcela ...
:
1987–88
See also
*
List of UEFA Cup and Europa League winning managers
The UEFA Cup was a European association football competition contested from 1972 to 2009. In the 2009–10 season its name was changed to UEFA Europa League.
English manager Bill Nicholson led Tottenham Hotspur to victory in the inaugural final ...
References
External links
Erich Ribbeck at eintracht-archiv.de
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ribbeck, Erich
UEFA Cup winning managers
1937 births
Living people
Wuppertaler SV players
German football managers
Germany national football team managers
Borussia Dortmund managers
Rot-Weiss Essen managers
FC Bayern Munich managers
Bayer 04 Leverkusen managers
Eintracht Frankfurt managers
1999 FIFA Confederations Cup managers
UEFA Euro 2000 managers
Bundesliga managers
1. FC Kaiserslautern managers
FC Viktoria Köln players
Sportspeople from Wuppertal
Association football defenders
Footballers from North Rhine-Westphalia
German footballers