The truth is that even Jürgen Klopp was surprised when FIFA officials informed him that he had been named International Football Association’s Coach of the Year. Although Klopp led Liverpool to a first English championship after 30 years – he also knows that the best coach in the world in 2020 was another German. Hansi Flick.
The one who mocked the strange choice was Jose Mourinho, who said: “I think the only way Flick would have won the title was if Bayern Munich had found two or three more tournaments and won them. Maybe if he had won seven titles this year they would have chosen him as coach of the year “Unfortunately, he only won the Champions League, the German League, the German Cup, the German Super Cup and the European Super Cup.”
The Enzy Flick’s success story is huge, but it’s even bigger when you remember how it all started, when Bayern were humiliated in early November 2019 in Frankfurt and defeated 5-1. It was clear to everyone then that the summer was over for the not-quite-long term of Nico Kovac as the team’s coach. Although Bayern defeated Tottenham 2: 7 in London in the Champions League in October, the fans were not too impressed. They looked towards the Bundesliga table and saw their team in fourth place, on the way to losing the title after 7 consecutive championships.
The defeat to Frankfurt decided Kovacs’ fate. The obvious move was to finally name a big name as the new coach. The betting agencies voted for Mourinho as the top candidate. There were even rumors that the “special” started learning German. Masimiliano Allegri was also available for bids. Like Mourinho, he sat at home waiting for the right team. Other names were thrown into the air: Arsene Wenger, also with a sign “available for transport”, and Eric Tan the brother, the Dutchman who did wonders with Ajax.
To everyone’s surprise, the person who received the appointment was Enzy Flick, Kovacs’ assistant. Whoever then put his money on Flick could have made a not bad cashier. The betting ratio on it was 12 to 1. Initially Flick’s appointment was defined as “temporary”, ie until the appropriate long-term coach is found.
That also makes sense, since 55-year-old Hans Dieter Flick has never been a big name. He has also never been a head coach in a senior team. He coached Victoria Menthal in the regional league between 1996 and 2000 and then coached Hoffenheim until 2005. Today Hoffenheim is a legitimate Bundesliga team, but in Flick’s era it was still a semi-professional team that played in the third and fourth leagues.
Flick was a respected actor in the 90s. He even played in the Champions League final in 1987, when Bayern lost 2-1 to Porto. But it took many years for him to return to consciousness. It only happened after the 2006 World Cup, when national team coach Joachim Lev appointed him his assistant, a position he held for 8 years. “Yogi” Lev won, of course, most of his fame, for qualifying for the Euro 2008 finals and winning the 2014 World Cup. Flick, as usual, was by his side, a full partner in the great successes, but without getting too much credit.
All his life Flick hidden to the vessels remained in the shade, by hand. When he was 18 he was torn between working as a bank clerk and the offer he received from Stuttgart. “I wanted to finish the course at the bank. I wanted to secure a job if I did not succeed in football. But in Stuttgart they said that if I continued at the bank, I could only play in the reserve. So I chose football.”
Even before joining the team, he worked as an assistant to Giovanni Trapattoni at the Red Bull Salzburg. At 55 Hanzi was confident he would also end his career as an assistant, as the anonymous No. 2. Fact, in the summer of 2019 he again got the role of assistant coach, this time at Bayern Munich. “When I was offered the job I did not think too much,” he admitted.
The selection of Bayern chiefs at Flick, at least as interim coach, had good reasons. First, he knows the club from the inside, understands the special character of Bayern, and the hierarchy that operates in it. Second, Flick knows very well and over the years three of Bayern’s biggest stars, the ones who worked with him on the team: goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, stopper Jerome Boateng and midfielder Thomas Muller. Boateng and Muller started last season very badly, until Kovac brought them down to the bench. When Flick got the job, suddenly the two came back to life. Especially Muller, who was literally reborn. Flick changed his performance on the field, did not require him to do defense as he did in the Kovacs era, and saw this as a miracle: Thomas Müller returned to being the smart and special player he used to be, cooking and scoring in quantities.
The “flick effect” was immediate. Bayern won the first four games with him, scoring 16 goals and not conceding at all. It included an incredible 0: 4 victory in the “Classic” over the table leader Dortmund, and an away victory 0: 6 over the Red Star Belgrade in the Champions League. Until the season in Germany came to a halt due to the Corona plague in early March, Bayern were on a crazy flight. In 14 games she won 13 and finished one in a draw. Bayern returned to first place in the table when the league was stopped, but Flick knew how to prepare the team in the perfect way when the season resumed in mid-May.
The finish of the season was nothing short of amazing. Bayern have won all 16 games left, including a historic 2: 8 over Barcelona in the Champions League quarter-finals and 0: 1 over Paris Saint-Germain in the final. And whoever thought it would stop there, was greatly mistaken. Bayern started the new season at the same crazy pace, and despite a lone loss (4: 1 to Hoffenheim of Monas Dabour), they finished 2020 as the best team in the world – by a margin.
The Enzy Flick numbers broke all records. In his 58 games as Bayern coach he has won 50, finished 5 in a draw and lost 3. This is an 86 percent success rate. These are unprecedented figures. This is the best average of any coach in the history of Bayern. But beyond the numbers Flick, much thanks to his relaxed and positive nature, has completely changed the face of the team. The hesitant, insecure Bayern, with the penetrating defense, reset. It has become a crushing football machine, like in its greatest days.
Robert Lewandowski stepped up his goal-scoring pace and became the best striker in the world, Thomas Muller returned to flourish and is one of the best cooks in Europe, young Canadian defender Alfonso Davis became a sensation, 17-year-old Englishman Jamal Musiala on his way to becoming a superstar. And it’s all clear that without the Enzy Flick all this would not have happened.
“Effect Flick” led in April to the management’s obvious decision: the enzy will remain. The title “Temporary Coach” has been deleted. In the summer he signed a contract until 2023. And now Bayern are already afraid that he will be tempted to accept the job of coach of the German national team …
And so, in about a year, Enzy Flick from an anonymous coach became the best coach in the world in 2020. Not bad for someone who in his youth was not sure he would succeed in the football world and thought it might be better to be a bank clerk.
