Ulf Kirsten: King poacher, grouch and grafter

The ranks of the honorary captains were extended by the addition of Rüdiger Vollborn and Stefan Kießling in the summer of 2019. bayer04.de is using the current period without games to say a big thank you to these Werkself legends every Friday over the next few weeks. The second instalment of the six-part series is about Ulf Kirsten, the first Black and Reds honorary captain in 2004.

And the winner is: Der Schwatte! When Bayer 04 asked the fans last year to nominate their Bundesliga All Stars as part of the '40 years Bundesliga under the Bayer Cross' anniversary, there were no doubts for 91% of the 12,000 online voters: Ulf Kirsten has to be in it. And, 16 years after the end of his career, the ‘Torgarant’ ('The Guarantor of Goals', the title of his biography) is still immensely popular with Werkself supporters and almost nobody can hold a candle to him.

The first Bayer 04 honorary captain worked hard, in the true sense the word, the gain that devotion: fearless and unflinching, always ready for one-on-one challenges. "Where others pull their feet away, Kirsten goes in with his head," his former coach Eduard Geyer noted appreciatively. And Uli Borowka, back then a hard and physical enforcer at Werder Bremen and Borussia Mönchengladbach, recently described in an interview with 11Freunde Kirsten's abilities to take blows and put up a fight: "With some strikers, you could battle with them on equal terms, that was sensational. Others preferred to run away. When I said to Jürgen Klinsmann,' It's your turn today,' you couldn't see him for dust. When I said it to Andreas Möller, he ended playing as a second sweeper. One person who kept on coming at me was Ulf Kirsten. You could kick him and two minutes later he'd have a go at you. Once he caught me in the first challenge. I asked him what he was up to. He said: 'That was for last time.'"

Ulf Kirsten, a textbook, ready for action, number nine. The tougher it got, the greater his ambition: "It just spurs me on if the whole stadium is booing me." To be loved by his own fans was fine but he never wanted to be everybody's darling. That would never have suited his sometimes quick-tempered character: If somebody rubbed him up the wrong way, the curmudgeon and grouch often came out. Whenever his skillful teammates were, in his opinion, being too excessive with their artistic and magical football instead of supplying him with targeted passes and whipped-in crosses, then he could crash about and briefly be unpleasant even after victories. As he was "a tough nut" as his sporting mental Reiner Calmund once described him, and Kirsten was "my absolute transfer of the century" not taking account of all of the South Americans signed by Bayer 04.

How it was delivered never conformed to his understanding of efficiency. "A goal doesn't have to be beautiful, over the line is enough," was his motto. That always served Ulf Kirsten well in his professional career. The master of the goals in figures: 446 games for Bayer 04 and 238 goals, scorer of the winning goal in the DFB Cup final of 1993 against the Hertha Berlin Amateurs (see the interview at the end of the article), three times top goalscorer in the Bundesliga 1993, 1997 and 1998, 100 international caps (49 for the GDR, 51 for Germany), nobody else who played for both national teams did better.

The lad from Riesa, who came through the ranks at Dynamo Dresden, won two league titles and three cups and joined the Werkself as the GDR Player of the Year in 1990, was straight out of the blocks from the start at Leverkusen. A true import hit from the East after the fall of the wall. In his Bundesliga debut at the Olympic Stadium in Munich, he scored against Bayern in typical Kirsten fashion (final score 1-1) and immediately made his mark. That was followed by countless great moments of the dynamic power pack in a Bayer 04 shirt – sometimes he excelled, particularly in the 'big’ emotional games as against Bayern or in the derby against FC Köln or on the European stage as against PSV Eindhoven, scoring hat tricks against all three opponents.

FC Bayern's Brazilian Giovane Elber formed a clear opinion after Kirsten's hat-trick on 30 November 1997 that led to a four-to win for the Werkself after being 2-0 down with a man less: "I've seen a lot of strikers but none like Kirsten. The way he works, battles, runs, gives his all for the team and then goes on and scores – pure madness!" Kurt Vossen, then the chairman of the football section, once found these words for the full-blooded striker: "nothing has ever dropped into his lap. If I think of his never-ending sprints and runs during a game. To be successful, he made working up a sweat and being tough on himself into a precondition. I think a lot of people unconsciously see him as a role model. Living also means fighting, you don't get given anything, but you must never give up."

In the UEFA Cup season of 1994/95, where Bayer 04 were only knocked out in the semi-finals against the eventual winners AC Parma, Kirsten was the top European scorer with ten goals. The consistent poacher, who formed a congenial duo – the one a hustler, the other sprinter - in his first years at Bayer 04 with his contemporary Andy Thom, experienced another boost in performance under the aegis of Christoph Daum. When he took over at the Werkself in the summer of 1996 after they had almost been relegated, Kirsten experienced a rapid Renaissance after the poor season before where he only managed to score eight goals. Not being considered for Euro 96 represented a low point and he almost moved on to Benfica in response but he allowed himself to be infected by the vacuum salesman mentality of Daum – similar to the coaching version of Oliver Kahn: 'carry on and on'– and he blossomed again. New start, new game, new success. His 22 goals brought him his second top goalscorer award in 1997.

"Ulf has an innate goalscoring instinct that is impossible to learn. He's an highly explosive bundle of energy and his area of action goes so far that he even astounds his own defenders as he heads balls away on the goal-line. And he possesses a similarly favourable leverage ratio as Gerd Müller did. I'll never forget one of his goals. In our Champions League match in Lierse, two Belgians were having a go with elbows and kicks. Ulf fell to the ground, picked himself back up again and fired the ball into the roof of the net. Gerd Müller would have done the same," said Daum.

'Der Bomber' from Bavaria could only agree back then. "He's my legitimate successor in the 90s. We are similar in terms of stature: powerful thighs, strong muscles and not too tall. On the other hand, we were able to gain those crucial centimetres to beat defenders with short, quick movements. Neither of us is very elegant but we are very effective." An accolade from the well-qualified Müller for the Leverkusen central striker who was the top goal-getter in the league for the third time in 1998 with 22 goals.

Neither of his two most desired sporting wishes, being a champion of Germany and winning the World Cup, came to be. He was a runner-up with the Werkself in 1997, 1999, 2000 and 2002 although he did feel like he had one hand on the trophy in the last two years. He was never 100 per cent playing for Germany although he did make 51 appearances and scored 20 goals. He did not play at the 1994 World Cup in the USA due to a thigh injury and four years later there was no success in France. I was only ever a stopgap in the national team," he said. He has always been very frank even in his own direction.

Ulf Kirsten ended his professional career on 1 July 2003 and he was celebrated for one last time by the fans in his home town of Dresden on 16 November in his testimonial – a teary-eyed lap of honour included. In the following two years at the Werkself, he was assistant coach to Klaus Augenthaler and then he went on to coach the Bayer 04 reserves in the Regional League for six years up to 2011. And even if it then became significantly quieter for the enthusiastic motorcycle freak: For Bayer 04 fans, 'Der Schwatte' is still simply the best.

In the following interview, Ulf Kirsten looks back to the DFB Cup win in 1993:

"Only the title counts, the opponent is irrelevant"

Ulf, your goal in the 1993 cup final at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin was the winner against the Hertha Berlin Amateurs. To be honest:, how often did you watch the whole of the Bayer 04 cup win on television?

Kirsten: To be honest, I've never watched the game again. Of course, you can see my winner from time to time in highlights on particular occasions. I really like what I see then. I feel proud and think: Really great, I did that well.

Do fans still talk to you today, almost 27 years later, about that goal and winning the cup?

Kirsten: Very rarely actually. I'm more often asked about my goalscorer trophies. But that's easy to understand. Today there is another, younger generation watching football. I think many of them who come to the BayArena now and are interested in football weren't even born in 1993. That also explains why the desire, above all with teenagers, for the title and an experience like that is particularly great.

And the move that lead to the winner, does that sometimes go through your head like a film?

Kirsten: Definitely, you don't forget moves like that. I remember exactly. I see how Pavel Hapal wants to cross from the left and I immediately moved to the far post. The ball comes over, I jump higher than the Berlin keeper Fiedler with his outstretched arms and place the ball in the far corner. Finally we’ve scored our goal. We were totally on top. The Berliners had one weak effort from Carsten Ramelow who signed for us shortly after that. A 6-0 win would have been quite normal. In addition, I think the referee Markus Merk didn't allow one of our goals. For me, the ball was definitely behind the line after the shot hit the underside of the bar. There was no VAR back then. But let's forget it.

You were clearly the favourites, what can go wrong when a Bundesliga team plays an amateur side. How did you handle it?

Kirsten: It was all the same to me. At the end of the day, we had a sort of an away game. 50,000 supported the Berliners and only 20,000 Leverkusen supporters were in the ground. That didn't bother as at all. Only the title counts, the opponent is irrelevant. People quickly forget that we beat the top favourites Eintracht Frankfurt in the semi-final under Stepanovic, who then joined us in place of Reinhard Saftig and was on our bench in Berlin, with a 3-0 victory in an outstanding match.

Can you remember the moment you lifted up the cup?

Kirsten: It was a really brilliant feeling, a unique experience. I often go to the Schwadbud where I see lots of photos of the cup win. That victory was very important for our fans. We do have a small fan base but a very good one.

Is it right that you spent the night with the cup in your bed?

Kirsten: Of course not. That was a posed photo for the press. And then I handed the cup onto a teammate. I don't know who that was any more. I didn't even get to bed that night. We celebrated till eight in the morning and then flew home at nine.

Is it at least true that Stepi didn't touch the cup at all?

Kirsten: That's not right either. He danced on the table with the cup just like many of us. And that was all okay.

What do you still remember?

Kirsten: Lots of hugs with Reiner Calmund. We achieved great targets together. He was always like a second father for me. He brought me over from Dresden and never let me go. I still remember how he wore a jeans jackets with Bayer stickers from our fan liaison officer Andreas Paffrath plus a baseball cap at the celebrations at Leverkusen town hall the day after. You never forget something like that.

Personal details:

Date and place of birth:
4 December 1965 in Riesa

Clubs:
BSG Chemie Riesa, BSG Stahl Riesa, Dynamo Dresden, Bayer 04

Bundesliga appearances:
350

Bundesliga goals:
182

Honours:
51 international caps for Germany (20 goals), 49 caps for the former GDR (14 goals), DFB Cup winner 1993, Bundesliga top goalscorer 1993, 1997 and 1998, Champions League runner-up 2002, DFB Cup finalist 2002, Bundesliga runner-up 1997, 1999, 2000, 2002, GDR champion with Dynamo Dresden 1989 and 1990, GDR cup winner with Dynamo Dresden 1984, 1985 and 1990, GDR Player of the Year 1990