Fall ’73 : Bayern By Skin Of Teeth In Sweden

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History, thereafter, might have been different in the fall of 1973 but West Germany World Cup star and club captain FRANZ BECKENBAUER delivered with the winning penalty kick in the shootout as Bundesliga outfit Bayern Munich crucially managed to just barely survive feisty Swedish side FF Atvidabergs in the opening round of the prestigous European Cup.
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BAYERN MUNICH had lost but once in its first ten matches in all competitions when arriving in Sweden to face FF ATVIDABERGS in the return leg of the first round European Cup tie for the 1973-74 season. The Bavarians had boasted six victories thus far, including the 3-1 triumph — powered by the pair of strikes from West Germany international superstar GERD MUELLER — over their Swedish opponents in the first leg at the Olympiastadion in Munich. But Bayern were also winless in their last four Bundesliga games and, despite the two-goal advantage, the early October journey to Scandanavia still proved to be rather difficult for one-time West Germany Olympic trainer UDO LATTEK’s side in the end.

The reigning two-time defending Bundesliga champions sent out a full-strength first team in Sweden which included six starters from West Germany’s reigning 1972 European Cup of Nations title-winning squad as well as new signing JUPP KAPELLMANN, who broke the existing Bundesliga record with his 880,000 Deutsche Mark transfer from 1.FC Koeln in the summer of 1973.

FF Atvidabergs, however, had five men in its line-up for the second leg against Bayern Munich who would eventually make Sweden’s squad competing in the 1974 FIFA World Cup final tournament hosted by West Germany. One of those players, forward BENNO MAGNUSSON, later spent two and a half seasons in the Bundesliga with 1.FC Kaiserslautern and SC Hertha Berlin. Another future World Cup and West German first division performer, winger CONNY TORSTENSSON, very nearly succeeded in spoiling the Bavarians’ whole trip.

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24-year-old Sweden international winger CONNY TORSTENSSON of Swedish champion FF Atvidabergs fires the first of his two goals against German titlist Bayern Munich during the first round, second leg European Cup match at the little Kopparvallen stadium on October 3, 1973.
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It would take FF Atvidabergs all of fifteen minutes to erase the deficit to Bayern Munich from the first leg. This scoreline left the European Cup tie square on aggregate but the Swedes ahead on the away goals rule. Worse still for Lattek’s team, West Germany international left back PAUL BREITNER had to leave with an injury just after the second goal at the Kopparvallen.

A second goal from the # 7 Torstensson with less than twenty minutes remaining sent FF Atvidabergs in front 3-0 for the evening and confirmed the fact that visiting Bayern Munich were in serious trouble. Fortunately for the Bavarians, within sixty seconds young and talented ULI HOENESS fashioned a rapid response. A goal from the 21-year-old attacking midfielder, who had accompished for West Germany the unusual feat of appearing in the Final of the European Cup of Nations and the final tournament of the Summer Olympic Games all in the same season the year before, restored equilibrium at 4-4 on aggregate.

Kapellmann and Torstensson traded successful penalty kicks before winger BERND GERSDORFF, another summer signing of Bayern Munich’s who had scored nine Bundesliga goals for relegated Eintracht Braunschweig the previous campaign, missed the net completely. Once again the situation looked bleak for the Bavarians. But in the fourth round, West Germany international goalkeeper SEPP MAIER dove to his left and denied Sweden’s future World Cup defender KENT KARLSSON to make the save that Bayern Munich desperately needed.

FF Atvidabergs would miss with its fifth and final penalty kick, which stamped Bayern Munich’s passport into the second round of the 1973-74 European Cup tournament.

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Summer ’73 : Bayern Break Bundesliga Record

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Bundesliga record-breaker JUPP KAPELLMANN (right) celebrates a Bayern Munich goal by the side of a pair of fellow senior internationals and two of the Beautiful Game’s all-time greatest, Der Kaiser (FRANZ BECKBENBAUER, left) and Der Bomber (GERD MUELLER, center); all three players ended up on West Germany’s World Cup-winning squad in the summer of 1974.
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Although the tie had, for all intents and purposes, been decided after the first leg in Amsterdam, Bayern Munich’s 2-1 defeat of eventual European Cup champion Ajax at the Olympiastadion in the return match indicated that trainer UDO LATTEK’s charges were, indeed, an extremely formidable side already and, perhaps, really only a player or two away from reaching the pinnacle of all of professional football.

With the full support of influential Bayern Munich club president WILHELM NEUDECKER, who was prepared to make available the requiste funding, Lattek looked the strengthen the team in the summer of 1973. One item on the agenda was to diversify the attack, if possible. West German international superstar GERD MUELLER continued to score goals at an astonishing rate; der Bomber had amassed a career-high 54 goals and youthful attacking midfielder ULI HOENESS, another standout fo the West German Startelf though still just 21, contributed another 22 goals in all competitions over the course of the 1972-73 season for Bayern Munich. But, an even more-balanced offense was only logical in this brand new era of Total Football.

Bayern Munich did generate a few headlines with the addition of a pair of Auslaender (foreign) players to the squad although, truth be told, neither would accomplish much, if anything. There were some hopes for Denmark international defender VIGGO JENSEN arriving from B 1909 Odense as countryman and national team constituent JOHNNY HANSEN had done well as the regular right back in the two-time defending Bundesliga Meister side for the past three seasons. And, agreeing to his first professional contract in the West was the Yugoslav DUSAN JOVANOVIC, a 26-year-old striker previously with OFK Belgrade.

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Coinciding with the arrival of West Germany international midfielder JUPP KAPELLMANN at defending champion Bayern Munich from runners-up 1.FC Koeln to start the 1973-74 football season was the initial appearance of shirt advertising in the Bundesliga.
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The real ‘big story’ in the summer of 1973, however, revolved around Bayern Munich’s record-breaking purchase.

Promising JUPP KAPELLMANN had come off of a career-high eight goals in 32 games for 1.FC Koeln, the Bundesliga runners-up for the 1972-73 campaign. The 23-year-old, left-sided midfieler/winger had also just earned his first-ever international cap by going the full ninety minutes as West Germany had dispatched Bulgaria 3-0 at the Volksparkstadion in Hamburg earlier that spring. Sufficiently impressed, Bayern Munich paid out 880,000 Deutsche Mark to sign Kapellmann and set a new domestic standard in the process.

Another attack-minded midfielder, BERND GERSDORFF, was brought on from relegated Eintracht Braunschweig. The 26-year-old one-time Stadt Liga (city league) player with Tennis Borussia in West Berlin had scored 16 Bundesliga goals over the past two seasons with Braunschweig. Gersdorff would go straight into the Bayern Munich Startelf, deployed up front as a right winger by Lattek.

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Always attack-minded BERND GERSDORFF (right) grabs one of his two goals for Eintracht Braunschweig during the bottom-of-the-table tussle with Hannover 96 in late May of 1973. Eintracht Braunschweig won this exciting affair 3-2 but, in the end, lost out to Hannover 96 by a single point in the Bundesliga standings and were sent down. Gersdorff would later earn his one and only full international cap for West Germany in conjunction with the 2-0 victory over Austria at Vienna’s Praterstadion in early September of 1975.
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BAYERN MUNICH
Arrivals — Summer, 1973
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gk — 21 — Walter MODICK ————– fr FC Memmingen
gk — 19 — Hugo ROBL ———————- fr TSV 1860 Munich
df — 26 — Viggo JENSEN —————– fr B 1909 Odense (Denmark)
mf — 22 — Erwin HADEWICZ ———- fr VfR Aalen
mf — 23 — Jupp KAPELLMANN —— fr 1.FC Koeln
mf — 26 — Bernd GERSDORFF ——– fr Eintracht Braunschweig
fw — 26 — Dusan JOVANOVIC ——— fr OFK Belgrade (Yugoslavia)

Sommer ’73 : Sechs Spieler Schickten Weg

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The Startelf (plus one substitute, for those paying close attention) of the-then two-time defending Bundesliga champions BAYERN MUNICH pose with the coveted Meisterschale during the 1972-73 football season :

back row (left to right): Franz BECKENBAUER, Georg SCHWARZENBECK, Franz ROTH, Willy HOFFMANN, Gerd MUELLER, Dieter HOENESS, trainer Udo LATTEK

front row (left to right): Franz KRAUTHAUSEN, Edgar SCHNEIDER, Rainer ZOBEL, Johnny HANSEN, Sepp MAIER, Paul BREITNER
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Summer 1973 — German club BAYERN MUNICH are repeat Bundesliga champions for the very first time in club history but the resounding 4-0 loss to eventual titlist Ajax Amsterdam in Holland at the first leg of the quarterfinal stage for the 1972-73 UEFA European Cup competition had taught a harsh lesson.

That being that no fewer than six highly-skilled players from the West German Startelf that shutout the Soviet Union 3-0 to win the 1972 European Championships was still not sufficent to bring about success at the very highest level of professional football and, thus, changes to the team would have to be made by trainer UDO LATTEK if Bayern Munich were to achieve any aspirations of Continental glory.

Altogether a half dozen players — almost a quarter of the full senior squad — were shown the door at Saebener Strasse in Munich although just one of the kickers leaving approached anything near full-time status in Lattek’s first team.

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WOLFGANG SUEHNHOLZ, the one-time Hertha 03 Zehlendorf forward who would later be named the Most Valuable Player of the 1976 Soccer Bowl as the Toronto MetroCroatias captured the North American Soccer League championship, made 37 appearances and scored six goals in all competitions for Bayern Munich during the 1971-72 season.
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Two of the departing six were actually reserve goalkeepers including the veteran Yugoslavia international ZLATKO SKORIC. The 30-year-old shot-stopper had made 24 Bundesliga appearances with Vfb Stuttgart during the 1971-72 season but could not get more than one European Cup game (against AC Omonia Nicosia on the road in Cyprus) with the likes of West Germany international SEPP MAIER on the books at Bayern Munich. And so, Skoric returned to France for a second tour of duty with Olympique Avignonnais.

Another, 27-year-old winger WOLFGANG SUEHNHOLZ, had not made so much as a single appearance with Bayern Munich over the course of the 1973-73 campaign. The one-time Berlin Stadtliga Stuermer had played 25 Bundesliga games scoring four goals for Lattek’s side his first season in Bavaria after arriving from Rot Weiss Oberhausen the previous year. Suehnholz would ultimately cross the border and sign his next contract with Grasshopper Zurich in Switzerland.

The one regular player released was FRANZ KRAUTHAUSEN, the left-sided winger/midfielder who had also transferred to Bayern Munich from Rot Weiss Oberhausen in the summer of 1971. The emergence and continued development of 19-year-old BERND DUERNBERGER, the versatile arrival from ESV Freilassing who found himself in the Startelf increasingly as the 72-73 schedule played out, had left the 27-year-old expendable. Krauthausen moved to Schalke 04 Gelsenkirchen but played just six more Bundesliga games over the next two years and, like Suehnholz, ended up in the old North American Soccer League on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

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FRANZ KRAUTHAUSEN, the former Bundesliga titlist who was reunited with his former Bavarian constituent Suehnholz in the summer of 1977 while playing with the NASL’s Las Vegas Quicksilvers, made 76 appearances scoring 10 goals in all competitions over two seasons for Bayern Munich. Here, Krauthausen kicks for the San Diego Sockers during the summer of 1978.
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BAYERN MUNICH
Departures — Summer, 1973
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gk — Zlatko SKORIC —————— to Olympique Avignonnais (France)
gk — Manfred SEIFERT ————- to FC Bayern Hof
df — Guenther RYBARCZYK —— to FSV 05 Mainz
fw — Hans JOERG ———————- to FC Augsburg
fw — Franz KRAUTHAUSEN —– to Schalke 04 Gelsenkirchen
fw — Wolfgang SUEHNHOLZ —– to Grasshopper Zurich (Switzerland)