On the death of Willibert Kremer: He made Bayer Leverkusen what it is

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Bundesliga coach Willibert Kremer

Photo: imago sportfotodienst

Willibert Kremer learned early on what makes a great coach.

In 1960 he joined Viktoria Köln in the Oberliga West as a young guy, the Bundesliga didn't even exist at the time.

The Viktoria coach was a strict gentleman with an unmistakably Rhenish tone in his voice, who had already earned merits with major city rivals 1. FC Köln and as an assistant to national coach Sepp Herberger: His name was Hennes Weisweiler, and the young man had a better teacher Footballer Willibert Kremer can no longer be found in his life.

Many who played under Weisweiler, who then led Borussia Mönchengladbach and 1. FC Köln to championship honors, later became coaches.

They wanted to imitate Weisweiler: At Viktoria, Kremer played with Gero Bisanz, who later was a trainer instructor and national coach for women at the DFB, with Carl-Heinz Rühl, who coached and managed the Karlsruher SC in the seventies and eighties, with Jürgen Sundermann , the promotion coach of VfB Stuttgart, who was later called Wundermann by fans.

His name is still associated with Bayer today

And Kremer also copied a lot from this grumpy, but also charismatic trainer.

It is one of the footnotes of the Bundesliga that Kremer celebrated his greatest coaching success, establishing the newly promoted Bayer Leverkusen in the league, precisely in the 1979/1980 season in which the coaching career of his teacher at the Rhine-neighbor Cologne was inglorious End went.

On the sixth day of the season, the student Kremer and the teacher Weisweiler met in the Bundesliga.

The then small Bavarian defied the then big FC 1: 1.

Basically, Kremer had achieved everything with it.

The name Willibert Kremer is still associated with Bayer Leverkusen today.

He coached the factory club for five years, when he took it over in 1976, Bayer was a mediocre second division team, shortly before relegation to the third division.

When Kremer left in 1981, Bayer was a full member of the Bundesliga.

What the club has remained until now.

Kremer had already had his successes before, at MSV Duisburg he had initially looked after the youngsters and was then promoted to head coach: He led the MSV to the cup final in 1975.

It was a team that Zebra fans in their dreary present still dream of today: Bernard Dietz, Ronnie Worm, both national players, the striker Rudi Seliger with his mighty mustache, Herbert Büssers, Kees Bregman, the hairdresser from the Netherlands, the uncompromising Deltef Pirsig.

Promotion against Bayer sister made perfect

The cup final against Eintracht Frankfurt was lost for the Kremer-Elf, otherwise they would probably have carried it on their shoulders at MSV, as they did at the end of the 1979 season in Leverkusen.

Bayer had a prominent name in the team with the 1974 world champion Dieter Herzog, but otherwise Kremer mainly had young players at his disposal, whom he formed to the top division level.

In the best Weisweiler style, so to speak.

Thomas Hörster, Jürgen Gelsdorf, Peter Szech and Walter Posner, all previously unknown young players who brought Kremer to a level that made the club's first league promotion in its history.

An ascent that the eleven made perfectly in keeping with their rank.

Against the Bayer sister from Uerdingen, the team was still 3-0 down after 70 minutes, then the Kremer-Elf scored three goals and scored the one point that was still needed for promotion.

Over the decades, Bayer has become a top team, not least with the corporate money behind it, European Cup winners, Champions League finalists, great players have worn the jersey: Michael Ballack, Lucio, Bernd Schneider, Kai Havertz, Ulf Kirsten, Jorginho, Rudi Völler.

A club with big ambitions, but everything started small, everything started with Willibert Kremer.

He got Calmund on board

And with Reiner Calmund.

Krener brought the ambitious 28-year-old Calmund to Leverkusen as a youth coach in 1976, and Calmund quickly became something of a man for all cases there: stadium announcer, head of youth work, and later Mister Bayer Leverkusen as manager.

Kremer hadn't been on board for a long time.

The coach has never been as happy as he was at Bayer.

He tried his hand at coaching 1860 Munich, Fortuna Düsseldorf, Eintracht Braunschweig, Tennis Borussia, engagements without much resonance.

He ended his coaching career in the mid-1990s and returned to where he felt most comfortable: until 2013, he still served Bayer as a player observer.

Willibert Kremer died on Christmas Eve at the age of 82.

He remains the man who made Bayer Leverkusen a Bundesliga club.