24 October, 1986
DFB Pokal 2nd round.
Bayer Uerdigen 2-3 FC Nurnberg (A.E.T)
In a tense match, Stefan Reuter gave the victory to FC Nurenburg ti send them through to the 3rd round, where they face FC Koln. Koln would see the allofs brothers make short work of them to head to the quarter-finals. Despite losing to Borussia Monchengladbach, Koln's board were happy that the club reached the last 8 of the cup, which was a much welcome change of pace from Koln's mediocre results as of late.
Knowing that they have a solid team that they could build around prodigy Pierre Litbarski, young talents Thomas Hassler , Olaf Janssens and Bodo Illigner as well as the Allofs brothers, the Koln board opted to hire a manager that would unlock that team's potential. And they found their man in BMG manager and legend Jupp Heynckes.
Heynckes made his mark immediately, selling Harald Schumacher to Schalke and Klaus Allofs to French club Marseille in shock sales to fund the transfers of highly-rated young prospects Jurgen Kohler and Stefan Reuter to rejuvenise the team and fully trusting the youngsters of the club (Hassler, Janssens, Litbarski and Illigner) to take the reigns. Then, Heynckes pulled off a huge coup by signing Scottish international striker Ally McCoist to partner Thomas Allofs up front.
What would follow is Koln's best season in recent times. The club would storm their way to an impressive podium finish as they finished 3rd behind Bayern Munich and champion Werder Bremen. In the DFB pokal, they would fend off Stuttgart and Bremen on their way to face Eintracht Frankfurt and Andreas Moller in the semis. a litbarski brace sent Koln to the final, where McCoist would easily score a hat trick against VFL Bochum to win the cup for Koln.
This meant that Koln will return to european competitions for the first time in a long while as they participated in the cup winners cup for 1988-1989. Heynckes's young team grew from the cup-winning experience, and domestically, they established themselves as title contenders with convincing wins against Bayern, Bremen and Stuttgart, with Ally McCoist scoring goals for fun as Koln entered January as league leaders. A shock round of 16 exit in the DFB-Pokal at the hands of Bayer Leverkusen and a middling run of results at the turn of the year, however, threatened Heynckes and Koln's title challenge to be thrown into jeopardy, but a bounce back against Uerdingen, Dortmund, Bochum and an Ally McCoist pass to Stefan Reuter, who buries it past Jean-Marie Pfaff, in a crucial 1-0 win over Bayern Munich in the return fixture gave Koln the necessary cushion to clinch their first Bundesliga title since 1978.
In europe, Heynckes's youngsters stampeded all the way to the semi-finals, where they lost against eventual runner-ups Sampdoria thanks to crucial away goals from Gianluca Vialli and Toninho Cerezo.
With the buli title in tow, Heynckes, Hassler, Litbarski, Illigner, Reuter, Kohler and McCoist ste their sights on doing well in their first champions league participation in 11 years, as well as defending their title. Brian Laudrup came in to give Koln a dual threat on the wings with Laudrup on the right and Pierre Litbarski on the left to give the ball to Thomas Allofs and Ally McCoist up front as well as trumping opposing goalies by going for goal themselves. Stefan Reuter, who was the right winger before the younger Laudrup's arrival, would switch to Center back alongside Jurgen Kohler, a move which further solidified the goats's defense in front of the ever solid Bodo Illigner in front of goal.
The season, however, would start with ups and downs. Big wins over Dortmund, Bayern, Bremen and Kaiserlslautern were followed by defeats agaisnt teams they should've won against, such as Bochum, Karlsruher and Bayer Leverkusen. This led Koln to sit at 5th in the table by january, 8 pts behind leaders Eintrach Frankfurt
Their form in europe and the cup, however, would be a whole different story. Koln would have a memorable thriller against Rangers in the group stages, where Ally McCoist would score a hat trick agaisnt his former club in a 3-2 win. They would then comfortably beat 17 nentori 6-1 before beating PSV Eindhoven in the quarter finals 3-1 with goals from Thomas Hassler and Jurgen Kohler proving critical. In the semis agaisnt reigning european champions AC Milan, McCoist equalised for Koln in the second leg 1-1 to send it to extra time, but the inevitable ruud Gullit would sink Koln's hopes of a huge upset as they bowed out of the semi-finals 2-1 as Milan would claim a second consecutive champions league title.
Back home in West Germany, Koln would start steamrolling their opposition, going on a 10-game unbeaten run and scoring big wins over Leverkusen and a crucial retunr win over Bayern Munich to set up a last day showdown agaisnt them and Frankfurt. Bayern would draw against Hamburg, while Koln would beat Bayer Uerdingen 2-1 with goals from Litbarski and McCoist's top scorer winning 26th goal giving Jupp Heynckes and Koln back-to-back Bundesliga titles, but they would lose the DFB Pokal final to Werder Bremen, dashing away a domestic double.
Following Germany's world cup win in Italy 1990, many Italian clubs came calling for players like Jurgen Kohler, Thomas Hassler, Stefan Reuter and Brian Laudrup, but Jupp Heynckes convinced them all to stay for the 1990-1991 season in order to win the title that should've been there's last season: the champions league.
They never digested that defeated against Milan in the semis of last year's competition, and so, they stormed to the top of their champions league group, beating Italian champions Napoli 2-1 in a famous victory on matchday 3. Domestically, Despite a strong start of the season, Koln would lose steam in the second half and get barely edged out on a European spot by VFB Stuttgart on the final matchday, ending up in 7th place. However, they would go all the way to the final in 1990-1991, where they would exact revenge on Werder Bremen, winning 4-3 on penalties thanks to Ally McCoist converting it.
In the knockout stages of the champions league, Koln would thrash CSKA Sofia 7-0, then beat 1987 european champions FC Porto 3-1 to face Red Star Belgrade in the semis. Red Star would win the first leg 2-1 away from home with Robert Prosinecki and Dejan Savicevic scoring, but Pierre Litbarski would score a hoem goal that would prove crucial. In the return leg, Ally McCoist and Thomas Hassler woudl score two away goals while Bodo Illigner had the game of his life, stopping every single shot on goal as FC Koln would go to the final on away goals to face Olympique de Marseille.
The final in Bari would be remembered for being a physical, intense match where neither side could find the netas it ended 0-0 and went to a penalty shootout. With the score deadlocked at 4-4, Dragan Stojkovic stepped up to the plate, only for Illigner to stop his shot. This led to Thomas Hassler converting his oenalty, then Illigner stopping Chris Waddle's penalty.
Game, set and match. Jupp Heynckes and FC Koln wins their first ever european cup!
However, the 1990-1991 season would prove to be the last hurrah for FC Koln as a top team in.the Bundesliga. The riches of Serie A came calling, with Thomas Hassler going to Roma, while Juventus would poach Jurgen Kohler and manager Jupp Heynckes. Finally, after winning the biggest prize in european club football, Ally McCoist opted to return to Rangers.
Winners: FC Koln, Jupp Heynckes and Ally McCoist.
With them not facing Bayer Uerdingen in the 1986-87 DFB Pokal and ending up unexpectedly in the quarter-finals of that year's edition, the butterflies meant that FC Koln's board sees the potential in that young Koln team and snatches Jupp Heynckes from Bayern's grasp. This leads to Koln actually poaching Ally McCoist as they were rumoured to be doing in 87-88, as well as grabbing 2 Back-to-back Bundesliga titles in 89 and 90 as well as the champions League in 1991, also winning that penalty shootout against Werder Bremen in the 1991 DFB Pokal final due to the mental fortitude gained from the winning culture installed by Heynckes and the deep runs in the league and Europe.
Jupp Heynckes, meanwhile, would end up as manager of Juventus in 1991 instead of Giovanni Trappatoni winning Serie A in 1994-1995 and the champions league in 1996. However, a dispute with the agnelli family saw heynckes leave Juve and go to Real Madrid, where he would win his 3rd champions league crown in 1998. He ends his managerial career in 2013 after winning his 4th champions league trophy, becoming the competition's winningest ever manager, a record only equalised by Carlo Ancelotti in 2022.
Also, Ally McCoist is a european champion. With that experience, McCoist returns to rangers in 19o1 to a hero's welcome, galvanising the side to the league title in 1991-1992 and also get them past Olympique de Marseille in the 1992-1993 champions league semi-finals to face off against AC Milan, where McCoist would score a tap in from an Alexei Mikhailichenko cross and Gary Stevens would score a header at the end of the game to give Rangers its first and only champions league title 2-0.
Losers: Bayern Munich, Red Star Belgrade, Marseille and Werder Bremen.
Bayern does not win back-to-back bundesliga titles in 89 and 90 due to no Jupp Heynckes as manager. In fact, they almost spent the entirety of the 90s not winning a single league title, losing the 93-94 title to Kaiserslautern and losing the 96-97 and 99-00 titles to Bayer Leverkusen, only winning the 1998-1999 bundesliga. In europe, however, they would go trophyless in the 90s, being the victim of one of the biggest bottlejobs of all time agaisnt Raith Rovers in the 1995-1996 UEFA Cup and losing the famed 1999 champions league final against Manchester United and the 2000-2001 final against Valencia on Penalties. In fact, Bayern wouldn't win another bundesliga title until 2009-2010 and a european title until the 2012-2013 champions league title, with Jupp Heynckes as coach.
Red Star Belgrade and Marseille, meanwhile, would lose out on the greatest club football exploits of their respective countries, with Red Star losing to Koln in the 1990-1991 champions league semi-final and Marseille losing to a Rangers side carried by the former european champion Ally McCoist in the 1992-1993 champions league semi-final.
Werder Bremen, meanwhile, would lose the 1991 DFB Pokal final on penalties, which prevented them from going back-to-back in that competition and also not winning the 1991-1992 cup winners cup, with Arsene Wenger's AS Monaco winning it against Club Brugges.
