Otto Rehhagel has certainly earned the title of "King Otto" with the the job he has done with the Greek national side guiding them to the Euro 2004 title and also since he took over in August 2001 hauling them from 61st position in the FIFA world rankings to a current 8th spot.
The 69-year-old Essen-born German has held the Greek coaching position longer than anyone else and his current contract will keep him there until the summer of 2010, after the World Cup finals.
A shrewd motivator, he has forced a number of top teams in the world to succumb to his controlled offense and defensive tactics. He has also completely turned around the previous Greek mentality of disorganization.
“I want Greece to be up there competing for the title, just as we did four years ago in Portugal,” Rehhagel said in a recent interview with the Russian sports newspaper Sport-Express.
“We will work hard to achieve our goals. We have to look at every match separately, starting with Sweden,” he said.
Greece also has Russia and Spain in its group.
After an embarrassing loss to Turkey at home last year in the Euro 2008 qualifiers, there were some in Greece who criticized Rehhagel for keeping faith with the same veteran players.
But he continues to believe in them and since that defeat they have produced some excellent results.
And the players believe in Rehhagel.
After a playing career in which he earned a reputation as a tough defender, he began his life in coaching in 1972 with FC Saarbrucken and after one season joined Kickers Offenbach where he stayed until 1975.
Rehhagel had a four-month spell with Werder Bremen in 1976 and then joined Borussia Dortmund where he continued until 1978.
During the 1978-1979 season he coached Arminia Bielefeld, in the 1979-1980 season he was with Fortuna Dusseldorf which won the German Cup and from 1981 to 1995 he again coached Werder Bremen where in 1992 he led the team to the now defunct Cup Winners Cup title in addition to two Bundesliga championships (1988 and 1993) and two German Cups (1991 and 1994).
He closed out his club coaching career with Bayern Munich from 1995 to 1996 and FC Kaiserslautern from 1996 to 2000 where in 1998 the team won the Bundesliga crown.
The highlight of his coaching career with the Greeks, without a doubt, was winning the Euro 2004 trophy.
To date Rehhagel has a record of 43 wins, 16 draws and 19 defeats as manager of Greece.
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