Sunday, May 19, 2013
Singapore's Stange
It has taken
almost six months but Singapore have finally appointed a new coach to replace
the now departed Radojko Avramovic and after months of less than frantic
speculation, we are after all talking about Singapore where they are more
concerned about Sir Alex Ferguson than their own national team, the Football
Association have opted for Bernd Stange.
The 65 year
old German inherits a Singapore team that won the ASEAN Football Federation Cup
at the end of last year. Avramovic was by far the best coach Singapore have had
and leaves behind a hard act to follow.
Players like
Baihakki Khaizan and Khairul Amri have added consistency to their undoubted
talent while younger players like Hariss Harun and Shafiq Ghani are evidence of
a productive conveyer belt of young talent, one that Stange will look to reap
the benefits of.
He certainly
brings a lot to the table. While rumours were rife Singapore were on the verge
of appointing the likes of David O’Leary or Peter Taylor the headhunters
appointed to lead the recruitment obviously saw something they liked in the
experienced coach.
After
hanging up his boots in 1970 Stange worked his way up through the coaching
ranks at Carl Zeiss Jena in the old East Germany. He then switched to the
national team and in a similar example of seamless Teutonic efficiency started
off with the Under 21s before becoming assistant manager of the national and leading
the Olympic team in 1984 before taking over the national team that same year.
The former
East Germany was a very different place to West Germany across the border. A
communist state with an all pervading secret police, the Stasi, freedoms were at a premium for the vast majority of people
and while sports were seen as a way of glorifying the communist way ordinary
people had to make do with shortages and restrictions.
From 1973 to
1986 it was reported Stange was an informer for the Stasi and on one occasion he broke into a flat to steal a diary. On
another time he reportedly informed on a family friend’s plans to flee the
country. Attempts to escape from the workers’ paradise were frowned upon by the
state. The border was heavily guarded and soldiers were not afraid to shoot
people trying to escape to the west.
In 1984 when
coach of the national team it was reported Stange had contacted another coach,
Jorg Berger, who had managed to escape to West Germany and asked him what he
knew about the current East German national team. The Stasi used this to claim Berger was actively seeking to help
players escape to the west, an example of the extreme paranoia that hung over
the Communist country.
“Stange was already the national coach and had no need to do this,” said
Berger. “He was just career-obsessed and it was also about money.”
In the fine tradition of communists when the wall came down and the two
Germanys became one Stange was there looking for a job, ending up with Hertha
Berlin the second division but after his previous activities became known he
had to resign and found work with Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk in Ukraine before
coaching Perth Glory to the National Soccer League in Australia.
He spent three months coaching the Oman national team before taking over
Iraq in 2002 at the same time the US president George W Bush was banging the
war drum over Iraq and their weapons of mass destruction. In the face of
criticism back in Germany Stange was unrepentant. “I had a choice between
staying unemployed or taking this job in Iraq.”
However questions over his judgment were raised when it was revealed
Saddam Hussein’s son, Uday, had tortured Iraqi players. He just dismissed the story as “manipulation”.
He showed another side to his character though, returning to the country
four months after the US led invasion and laying the groundwork for the team
that would win the AFC Asian Cup in Jakarta in 2007.
It was a dangerous time to
be in Iraq when it was tearing itself apart in a sectarian bloodshed that
followed the invasion.
"My car was shot at," he told BBC
Sport. "I had death threats because there was a picture in the newspaper
of me with the British foreign minister Jack Straw and 5,000 footballs that he
had given us. "A photo of me with the mortal enemy! After that I had to
leave the country."
His perseverance in difficult circumstances
had gone some way towards deflecting the wrath he had received back home in
Germany with Andrew McKenzie writing on the BBC website “The man accused of being a puppy dog to a dictator was
now painted as a hero who had taken a stand against the war in the name of the
beautiful game.”
After a short spell in Cyprus Stange found himself taking on another
tough role with Belarus. Widely regarded as Europe’s most repressive state Stange
again found himself in the firing line but remained stubborn, insisting he was
a football coach first and foremost.
“I’m the national manager of a country with a huge football tradition
and that’s all that counts. My working conditions are as good as anything that
I’ve experienced in my long football career.”
He was however impressed by the cleanliness and safety the Belarus
capital, Minsk, afforded its citizens, qualities no doubt that will endear him
to the Singapore faithful.
From East Germany to Singapore via Iraq and Belarus, Stange certainly
boasts an interesting CV but as he says, nobody ever called from Bayern Munchen
or Manchester United.
"I have worked for communist regimes, capitalists, for a sultanate
and a dictator, but my work is always the same. It's only ever about one thing
- putting the ball in the net."
SOURCE - This first appeared in the Jakarta Globe 17/5/13
# posted by Me @ 7:49 AM 
