Udo Lattek, most successful coach in Bundesliga history, dies aged 80

Udo Lattek, the most successful Bundesliga coach of all time and one of a select few managers to win all three major European club competitions, has died at the age of 80.

Lattek, who helped take Bayern Munich to the top of European football in the 1970s and coached Borussia Mönchengladbach and Barcelona among others, passed away in a nursing home. He had suffered a series of strokes and been treated for Parkinson’s disease. “Udo Lattek was not only the most successful coach in Bundesliga history,” the German Football Association president Wolfgang Niersbach said in a statement, “Udo Lattek was already during his lifetime a legend and we will miss him.”

Lattek holds the record for most Bundesliga titles with eight , six with Bayern and two with Gladbach. He took over Bayern in 1970 after a recommendation from Franz Beckenbauer, then a Bayern player, having no previous club coaching experience but a five-year stint as West Germany’s assistant coach.

He immediately led them to three consecutive league titles, a German Cup and the first of three successive European Cups in 1975. He took over Mönchengladbach for four years and again enjoyed instant success, with two championships and a Uefa Cup achieved through an exciting brand of football. He also led them to the 1977 European Cup final, which they lost to Liverpool.

He moved to Barcelona in 1981, where he won the Cup Winners’ Cup in 1982 and the Copa del Rey, completing his triple crown of European titles with three different teams and coaching Diego Maradona. He returned to Bayern in 1983 and went on to win another two league title and two German Cups before stints at Cologne and Schalke.

“Udo Lattek was one of the most successful German coaches,” said Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, Bayern’s chief executive. “For decades he was also one of the big personalities of the sport, nationally and internationally. We have lost one of the big men of Bayern Munich, a personal supporter and a friend.”

Lattek briefly came out of retirement in 2000 to help Dortmund avoid relegation in the last three games of the season.

Outspoken and always with a dry sense of humour in his view of the way the game was played these days, Lattek remained a household name, spending 16 years as a commentator on Germany’s popular Sunday morning football show Doppelpass.