Copenhagen, Feb 19: Sepp Piontek, the German coach who led the exciting Denmark team in the 1980s, has died, the Danish soccer federation said on Thursday. He was 85.
Piontek took a team popularly known as “Danish Dynamite” with star talents Michael Laudrup, Preben Elkjaer and Jesper Olsen to its first World Cup in 1986, two years after reaching the European Championship semifinals.
“He will never be forgotten by Danish football,” Laudrup told broadcaster TV2. “Today it’s normal that we qualify for the final (tournaments) but it was definitely not like that back then.” At the World Cup in Mexico, a stunning 6-1 win over Uruguay helped to lift Denmark to win its group ahead of eventual beaten finalist West Germany.
Piontek’s team unraveled in the round of 16 despite taking a first-half lead in a 5-1 loss against Spain.His 11-year spell ended after failing to qualify for the 1990 World Cup, though the foundations he left saw Denmark win a surprise title at Euro 1992.
Piontek was born in 1940 in the city that is now Wroclaw, Poland, and played six games for the West German national team. He won German league and cup titles as a player with Werder Bremen.
His coaching career took him to the Haiti national team for two years before he arrived at Denmark, and he later coached Turkey. His coaching career finished with the Greenland team.
Though his tenure ended in disappointment, Piontek’s influence on Danish football endured far beyond his final match in charge. He transformed a modest national side into fearless entertainers, instilling belief, structure and an attacking identity that changed perceptions of what Denmark could achieve on the international stage.
The triumph at Euro 1992, two years after his departure, was widely viewed as the flowering of seeds he had planted. (PTI)
