Another Not Nice Man

Many people might not be able to point to Belarus on a map, nor might most people be able to pick out a member of the German secret police on the street. What’s the connection you might ask? Well never fear, there is one, because you see, the current Belarussian manager is a man named Bernd Stange, with some not-exactly-admirable ties to the communist East German police, the Stasi.

Way back in the late 1970s, Stange went into coaching with German league behemoths FC Carl Zeiss Jena, winning the GDR league title twice before in 1982, he was appointed head coach of East Germany. Stange returned to FC Carl Zeiss Jena in 1988 briefly, before moving on to coach Hertha BSC Berlin, where the somewhat infamous ties as a Stasi informant surfaced. He was known as an “Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter,” which translates ominously as “unofficial employee,” and tasked with reporting back to the Stasi on his own players’ views of the government, and whether any of them were breaking the law by making contact with West Germans. If you’ve seen Good Night and Good Luck, it’s kind of like that.

Now, you might think that’s pretty bad, but with that kind of pedigree there was really only one place he could go. After a couple of little spells coaching in Australia and Oman, Stange registered on the radar of one of STT’s least favourite men ever, Uday Hussein. Yes that’s right, Herr Stange became the coach of the national team of Iraq, even amid threats from George W Bush of possible military invasion.

Surprisingly he didn’t ask long, because good old Bush did in fact follow through with his military conflict, in case that happened to pass you by. Stange left the country on account of increasing security concerns, finally resigning his position in July 2002 after coaching the team by telephone in the intervening period. Just one month later however, the team Stange built caused a sensation by reaching the semi-finals of the Olympic Football Tournament, losing narrowly to Italy in the bronze medal decider. Interesting, eh? Maybe someone should try dropping the Spurs players in vats of sewage, and making them kick enormous cement balls…