Calli is 75: Still in the fast lane

Carro and Rolfes congratulate Calmund

Fernando Carro, Bayer 04 CEO, said: "Reiner Calmund represents the very successful development of this club – you can't imagine the history of Bayer 04 without him. Four times runner-up plus the Champions League final in 2002 came during his time at the club. That almost says it all. In addition to his professional expertise, I really value our regular and personal communication. Congratulations, dear Calli!"

Simon Rolfes, Bayer 04 sporting managing director, said on this birthday: "When I came to Leverkusen as a player in 2005 Calli had left the previous year. I've never worked with him but everyone raves about him. In his many years as a manager and director he helped incredibly increase the profile of Bayer 04 above all in South America not least through international big-name signings. We continue to speak regularly on the phone and it's always interesting talking to Calli. I wish him all the best on his birthday."

Judge and quiz expert

The man is still on fire. Still an ever-present. Last week he was on two big TV shows. First as a member of a panel of judges on “Grill den Henssler” on VOX, a couple of days later as a clever clogs on the German VIP special of "Who wants to be a millionaire?" Calli raised €64,000 for a good cause as part of the RTL marathon donation for "Wir helfen Kindern" (We help children). He explained his participation in his characteristic style: "People who are doing better in this world have to think of people – particularly children – who aren't doing so well. Anyone who doesn't understand that should go to the doctor to have their skull opened up to see if all the wheels are turning correctly." Of course, that sounds better coming directly from Calli rather than reading it.

He had a few words of advice last Sunday in his TV appearance on the programme "Doppelpass" on Sport1. And here, Calmund showed in his usual manner that he is completely in his element on the subject of football. With emotion and expansive gestures, he analysed Germany's 3-2 defeat against Turkey as one of the pundits. He was annoyed that one or two had not had their wake-up call. He was spiky and grumbling in attack mode. But mostly he had a mischievous grin on his face. That's Calli. That's what he's like, that's why he’s loved. You just can't hold anything against this man.

Lots of irons in the fire early on

Sports journalist Karlheinz Wagner once described him as an "ingenious virtuoso in verbal imagry." Calmund has actually always been virtuous and ingenious from a very young age. Born in Brühl in 1948, he grew up in Frechen, the lignite area around Cologne, and the "shrewd guy with a mouth as big as the excavators in the area" (a self-description in his autobiography "fußballbekloppt!") developed into a young man who had lots of irons in the fire early on. He was an altar boy and accordion player. He completed training in wholesale and foreign trade, sold chairs and sofas, and worked on the side as a freelance local sports editor not just writing for the Kölnische Rundschau but also delivering the newspaper. He completed his national service and studied business via the adult education route. In short: Calli was working full out at the age of 20. If there was something to organise that inspired him, he was always passionate, "like a burning torch."

He couldn’t do without football. When the German Football Association (DFB) offered a course on becoming a DFB organisational leader, Calmund took his chance. His career as a midfielder at SpVgg Frechen 20 came to an untimely end with a broken ankle in his left foot. But that didn't really matter as he would never have been a professional footballer. Calli then became coach of the U17 team at his club and also coach of the district U15 youth team. In an around Cologne, he soon got to know every pitch, every player, every chairman and every coach.

Stadium announcer and a shoulder to cry on

The chapter of Leverkusen began for Calli on a rainy November day in 1976 when he met Willibert Kremer at a match played at the association sports college in Hennef. Kremer, back then coach at the second division club Bayer 04, took the busy as a bee Calmund under the Bayer Cross. "He needed somebody who could get things moving in all departments but, above all, in the youth section," recalled Calli, whose main job then was in the personnel department at Bayer AG. After work, he took over organising everything for the Bayer 04 U19s "from balls to corner flags, from the shirts to the boots." He was happy to be a jack of all trades. "I was the stadium announcer and a shoulder to cry on, a punchbag and the motivator, tactical fox and clown."

When the club was promoted to the Bundesliga in 1979, Calmund was officially the deputy chairman of the football section at TSV Bayer 04 Leverkusen looking after the youth section and youth development, he was responsible for the reserves and he built up a scouting section that was soon rated as one of the best in Germany. Reiner Calmund was long ago what the Tik-Tok generation calls for today: A big hitter! "We wanted to do the Bundesliga. And we did the Bundesliga. Even if it was from hand to mouth," said Calmund looking back at the first years in the top flight.

Always right to the limit

By now his life in the fast lane had started. Always right to the limit and sometimes close to physical collapse. Almost relegated (1982, 1996, 2003), two trophies (UEFA Cup in 1988 and DFB-Pokal in 1993) and several runners-up finishes (too many to list here): The sentimentalist and epicurean Calmund had experienced all the highs and lows at the club in an intensity and had suffered like no one else. There was always an emotional roller coaster including several loop the loops.

How close he was to success, but above all the failure, was written on his face. A pale white bundle of nerves in the relegation battle, a crying ball of misery after throwing away the league title in 2002, he suffered along with the fans. As he wore his heart on his sleeve he also showed his emotions with his whole body. There could not be greater identification with his employer. Employer? Completely the wrong word. No, Bayer 04 was the content of his life for Calmund for nearly 30 years. He helped shaped the club like no one else in that time between 1976 and 2004. With his infallible instinct for the right people in the right place he succeeded in freeing the club from the plain Jane image that remained until almost the middle of the 1990s. The Black and Reds developed into a top club at home and abroad under him.

Intellectually quicker than the competition

Calmund brought players like Rüdiger Vollborn, Jorginho, Andreas Thom, Ulf Kirsten, Bernd Schuster, Rudi Völler, Emerson, Michael Ballack, Bernd Schneider, Lucio, Dimitar Berbatov and many more under the Cross who arrived in stars are to develop into them. "I think his success was mainly based on him being intellectually quicker than the competition," Jorginho, the second Brazilian at Bayer after Tita, once said about Calmund. The manager took a similar view. One of his favourite sayings as he repeated like a mantra: "The big don't consume the little but the quick consume the slow."

Sometimes, as he admitted in his autobiography, he set a pace he could hardly follow himself. Bayer 04 definitely benefited from his high speed and his incredible resilience. Calmund brought in coaches like Dragoslav Stepanovic, Christoph Daum and Klaus Toppmöller. And he also succeeded in committing lots of club legends like Jürgen Gelsdorf, Peter Hermann, Norbert Ziegler, Thomas Hörster and Rüdiger Vollborn to Bayer 04 over the long term. And Rudi Völler took his first steps under Calmund in his second career as a sporting director and later sporting managing director.

Friend and "Pottsau"

As cunning and tricky, as ambitious and and shrewd as he was as a manager and director. With all the pursuit of the biggest possible sporting success, Calmund was never just a big boss, the XXL manager but to many also a good friend and mentor, mate, confidant, adviser. Someone you could cry your heart out. And he was someone who always stood behind you with his vast experience when things turn bad. Yes, he could get on your nerves internally but he never showed anyone up publicly in the Bayer 04 family. At half-time he came into the dressing room fuming mad, spoke his mind if he had to and used choice words if you wanted to be crystal clear. Once he broke his toe when he kicked a medical case full of rage in front of the whole team. The man could be a "Pottsau" (potty mouth") as Calmund once described himself.

Even Ulf Kirsten, who Calmund described as his "purchase of the century", felt it. 'The "Schwatte" once more confirmed his reputation as a moaner at a training camp in the USA. Calmund blew his top. His disciplinary measures brought Kirsten "one of the worst days of my life." The striker, who suffered from a severe fear of flying, was not allowed to return to Germany with the team but had to go on a ten-hour flight on a normal airline. "A horror show," recalled Kirsten. Just for survival, "with a bottle of red wine and three or four glasses of beer." But he also forgave his tormentor soon after his return "due to strong affection." And Calmund rarely maintained the role of a violent madman for very long. He mostly regained the upper hand with his warm-heartedness and his helper syndrome.

Calli would give the shirt off his back for his colleagues. And the fans knew everything was in good hands with him. His word was his bond. Today he still feels close affection to the supporters of the Black and Reds. An example required? When he was invited to Leverkusen for a 60th birthday of a Bayer fan at the start of this year, Calmund drove to the small party without a second thought. And events like that, away from the limelight, are important to him. A matter of honour.

Not at all “hösch”

It is now almost 20 years since he stopped working at Bayer 04. Of course, he has not eased off at all. The Reiner Calmund brand has significantly extended its portfolio over the past two decades. He was the big boss in the RTL reality show the same name, was a World Cup and European Championship ambassador, columnist, adviser and author, protagonist in the award-winning documentary “Calli do Brasil”, always still a welcome guest on talk, quiz, infotainment and comedy shows, in demand as a football pundit with lots of TV broadcasters, a speaker at conferences and corporate events, a podcaster (Echter Champions XXL) and a testimonial. Die Welt newspaper once called him "the pensioner with 13 jobs." That's about right. Not to forget his untiring commitment, above all, to children. Calmund works on a voluntary basis for several foundations and clubs.

Indefatigable, always en route to the next event, always at the centre of things. We say: "Hösch" and Reiner Calmund – that won't go together in the future either. And rightly so.

In that spirit: Happy birthday, Calli!