For young football fans, his time may have been too long ago to still know him. But many people will at least know his most famous sentence.
“What should I do with this fat little Müller. Are we weightlifters?” asked Zlatko “Tschik” Cajkovski when he saw a young player named Gerd Müller for the first time – and doubted whether the 1.76 meter tall striker with massive calves was the right reinforcement for his FC Bayern Munich was. (NEWS: All current information about the Bundesliga)
It is well known that appearances are deceptive: “short, fat Müller” became the “bomber of the nation”, the Bundesliga’s record goalscorer, a Bayern icon. Just like Coach Cajkovski, who would have been 100 years old today, has become one – despite his legendary misjudgment.
Tschik Cajkovski founded FC Bayern’s rise
Cajkovski – born on November 24, 1923 in Zagreb in what is now Croatia – made history as the coach who led FC Bayern into the Bundesliga and laid the foundation for their promotion to record champions.
The trained leather merchant was one of the best midfielders in Yugoslavia in the 1940s and 1950s, took part in two World Cups, won Olympic silver in 1948 and 1952 and came into contact with German football in three years at 1. FC Cologne. Coach at the time: Hennes Weisweiler.
In 1961, the “billy goats” hired Cajkovski as a coach, he led the team around world champions Hans Schäfer and Karl-Heinz Schnellinger to the 1962 championship. Because Cajkovski then gambled away in a contract poker with Cologne and Feyenoord Rotterdam (then still: Feijenoord) in 1963, Bayern came in the game.
“Ball round, stadium round, chik round”
The 1.67 meter short “Tschik” (stubble) proved to be a good choice to advance the collective with the young promises Franz Beckenbauer and Sepp Maier (Müller joined in 1964): promotion to the Bundesliga was achieved in 1965, in their debut season the third place.
Cajkovski was a loose-tongued man-catcher who led his charges with a healthy mix of temperament and warmth. The fact that he never mastered the German language perfectly and always had a few pounds too much on his hips only fueled his reputation as a lovable cult figure (“Ball round, stadium round, Tschik round” – “I’m not a teacher of German, but for football”).
With the coaching fox on the sidelines, Bayern won the DFB Cup for the first two times in 1966 and 1967, and in 1967 Cajkovski also led Bayern to their first international title: with a 1-0 final win against Glasgow Rangers – goalscorer: Franz “Bulle” Roth – the Munich team won the European Cup Winners’ Cup in Nuremberg.
Not to be forgotten in the track record: Under Cajkovski, Bayern also overtook their local rivals in 1860.
20,000 marks lured him away from Bavaria
After Bayern remained without a title in 1968, Cajkovski took the consequences on his own initiative and saw the time for a change had come: He accepted a lucrative record offer from league rivals Hannover 96 (20,000 D-Mark monthly salary), with Branko Zebec taking over at Bayern The first double was achieved in 1969.
Cajkovski’s coaching career continued for a long time, taking him to Offenbach, Nuremberg, and once again Cologne as well as to his native Yugoslavia as well as Austria, Switzerland and Greece.
His time at Bayern was the most memorable, not least because of the club’s later successes, for which he laid the foundation in the 1960s.
Tschik Cajkovski (l.), Udo Lattek and Dettmar Cramer at Franz Beckenbauer’s birthday game in 1995
Death after serious illness
As a regular guest in the stands at the Olympic Stadium, Cajkovski remained connected to Bayern, but life after football was also affected by many health problems.
Cajkovski developed diabetes and had to undergo several heart operations. In January 1998, his lower leg had to be amputated and doctors put him in an induced coma. Cajkovski never recovered properly and died on July 27, 1998 at the age of 74.
The eagerly awaited series project “Good Friends” by Helmut Dietl’s son David (RTL+) is currently also a reminder of Cajkovski’s legacy: the character actor Sascha Alexander Gersak (5 Years of Life, Gladbeck) skillfully brings the legendary trainer owl to life for a younger audience Life.
2023-11-24 16:21:06
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