No Dice Magazine PDF (12MB)

Emily Sweetman
history in the former DDR.
Sitting back at his desk, a Marlboro light still smouldering
away in the ashtray and the walnut hew of his summer holiday
tan not yet completely worn out by the stress of this horrible
start to the campaign, Neuhaus reflected on the differences
between when he had taken over and now.
“The preconditions that [first] season were totally different,
as I had just taken over a team that the year before had only
stayed up on goal difference.... The levels of expectation
weren’t as huge.” The growing of these expectations is best
shown by the fact that nobody minded being knocked out at
the same stage in his first year by the Bundesliga’s Eintracht
Frankfurt. “Getting knocked out of the cup is totally different
when you are a second division team against a Regionalliga
team.” He looked stung, drawn almost, reflecting on the bad
start.
Events on the pitch were bad enough, but attention was
being increasingly focussed off it. This was new to me. I
had attended almost every home game, and several away,
in the last five years and had never seen sections of the fans
arguing amongst themselves like they were said to have done
at Dresden. I had never seen them openly turning on the man
who was now the second longest-serving manager in the top
three divisions.
The success in ensuring 2nd division survival before time the
previous season had been overshadowed by the rancorous
reading of the headlines. The club’s all-time top scorer and
fans favourite, Karim Benyamina, had been allowed to leave
for FSV Frankfurt and naturally scored a typically elegant
volley against his former employers in the opening fixture.
The manager (in the German sense, a director of football
to the English) Christian Beeck had been fired in a surprise
announcement in May. To many of the fans, Beeck was
Union as much as Benyamina. He was the man whose quote
(whilst playing for Energie Cottbus) “we played fairly, with
the necessary brutality” would also sum up the black sheep of
Köpenick whose cries of ‘Eisern’ literally translate as ‘Iron’.
Beeck understood what they needed and what they expect
from their team. They want to see fighting for the cause. Not
for a single man. Not for Uwe Neuhaus, it seemed.
But he remains sanguine about it. “There was seemingly
a lot of disquiet in the summer. Some personnel decisions
that were taken didn’t have the complete support [of the fans],
and a few were surprised. I believe that this plays a part....
the last week’s headlines...” He trails off, talking about the
performances again. He likes to talk football. Not the other
bullshit. He says he trusts his players, and with his single
mindedness, is sure how to get the best out of them. Not for
him the Jose Mourinho ‘lightning rod’ technique, where the
Portuguese soaks up all of the off field pressure on behalf of
his squad. “I just try to regulate the pressure. You can’t take it
all off their shoulders. This last week is a good example. They
have seen the reaction of the fans, and taken it on board. They
read the newspapers, they know that the pressure is there, but I
have to redirect it on the training pitch.”
He says simply that his methods towards training won’t change
due to external circumstances, or due to the poor results. Why
should they, he asks. There are always specifics that come up
in the analysis after a game, but he says that that is completely
normal.
But this, in many ways, is at the root of some of the
fans’ problems with his management. He is seen as
an autocrat. As an inflexible dominant manager who
won’t see another way than his own. His accusers say
this was why Beeck was pushed out, and this is what
prompted a rash of ‘1.FC Neuhaus’ headlines in the
weeks that followed. Looking in, as an Englishman,
this is an argument that I have never fully understood.
Nobody tells Alex Ferguson or Arsene Wenger who
to buy (or not to buy in Wenger’s case).
Neuhaus sees it simply. “In England they do it one
way and in Germany we do it another. Everything
that is uncomfortable is received critically at first.
I don’t understand the anger, my methods of working
haven’t changed in six years... This was a false impression
given by the press.” This had followed the fallout from
Felix Magath’s unhappy second season at Schalke, where
he was ridiculed by all and sundry for wielding too
much power.
But Neuhaus’ mention of the press is telling. He seems
to be irritated by the workings of the game in the 21st century,
but does he accept that the press have a job to do the same as
he does?“Years ago, there were barely any headline stories,
ones that these days you see in different newspapers every
week. I have to accept it, but whether I like it or not is a
different thing.”
-----------------------------------------------
UWE NEUHAUS
Uwe Neuhaus has been through tough patches in football
before. Experiences that shaped his responses to the game’s
seemingly permanent state of crisis. In 1990, SG Wattenscheid
09 had made it to the promised land of the top flight. It was
unprecedented and Uli Hoeneß
described it as “the worst thing that could happen to the
Bundesliga.” As minnows, Wattenscheid knew they would
have to use all of their guile to stay up. They had to fight
together and learn how to come back from the inevitable bad
results that would follow.
That Neuhaus is such a determined and hard-working manager
is due in many ways to the fact that he was already in his late
twenties when Wattenscheid got promoted. He had honed his
skills in the lower leagues. The players may not have been as
naturally talented as some in the top flight, but the architect of
their promotion, Hannes Bongartz, knew how to make them
stand up to the best. This included a retort to Hoeneß’ words
11