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 ...

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 footb ...

. 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 solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, china, clay ...

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, t ...

, 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 Victori ...

. 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 of the borough of Charlo ...

. The next ten years he shared evenly with engagements with Eintracht Frankfurt and

1. FC Kaiserslautern 1. Fußball-Club Kaiserslautern e. V., also known as 1. FCK, FCK (), FC Kaiserslautern () or colloquially Lautern (), is a German sports club based in Kaiserslautern, Rhineland-Palatinate. In addition to football, the club also operates in sev ...

. 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

with

. 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 s ...

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 198 ...

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, Bierh ...

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 football pundit and former professional player and manager. After captaining West Germany to victory in the 1990 FIFA World Cup where he lifted the World Cup trophy, he was awarded the ...

. 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: ''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. It is the end of t ...

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, archipelago. With a land area of and a population of 978,100 inhabitant ...

, Spain.

Managerial statistics

Honours

Manager

;Bayer Leverkusen *

: 1987–88

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