Egon Coordes

Coordes originally played football for the Leher TS youth side. Coordes later started his professional game career in the late 1960s with Regionalliga North TuS Bremerhaven 93 and became well-known beyond the team. Coordes quickly moved to the top-ranked Bundesliga in 1971, playing through the rest of his career as defender at Werder Bremen and VfB Stuttgart. On 26 January 1974, Coordes managed to score the 10,000th Bundesliga goal against Eintracht Frankfurt. Coordes played a final season with Stuttgart before retiring as a player in 1976, aged 31.

When Coordes first entered professional football coaching (with OSC Bremerhaven on 13 March 1982) he declared that his players should "fight and bite like the lions." He was indeed widely considered a "passionate athlete" who preferred training cones and a stopwatch. He felt tactics were overrated. However, Coordes was roughly viewed for most of his football career as a coach who "leads a hard regiment, which does not necessarily result in an increased affection of its professionals." His style of leadership long carried the nickname "Schleifer" (in English "Grinder"). For one of many examples, in 1994 while Coordes was coaching for Austria Wien he once dropped legendary player Andreas Ogris from the squad for being five minutes late. Ogris was forcefully pardoned soon after. In 1984, Coordes coached in the Regionalliga North and later moved to the post of assistant coach at Bayern Munich. He then stepped up to head coach at his former VfB Stuttgart club in 1986, but for only a single season as the team finished behind in 12th place. In 1992, Coordes returned to his former post at Bayern Munich before again becoming head coach of Hamburger SV, but was sacked by Hamburger management after a mere six months. In 1993, Coordes moved via the Shabab Al Ahli Club to the Al-Nasr, the first and oldest football league in the United Arab Emirates. A year onward he returned to Germany and joined the 2. Bundesliga side, Hannover 96. Coordes struggled with Hannover management as the club…

Coordes was born on 13 July 1944. In June 2023, Coordes was publicly thanked for "wisdom, views, and fabulous cigars" when an artist returned from Dachau after Coordes insisted he make the trip. Coordes died on 17 June 2025, at the age of 80.