Toni Kroos' violent reaction to the questions from the ZDF reporter Nils Kaben made waves. But with all the excitement, one must not forget that the Champions League winner Kroos was by far not the first to cause a media scandal when he broke off the interview.
"But I'm cold now. Really. Whoa!" World champion Olaf Thon was irritated when he heard TV man Ecki Heuser comment that Schalke's game "wasn't great today" and that the coach "smiled" nonetheless. And when the Sat1 reporter finally asked how Olaf Thon could explain this, the S04 professional only scratched his nose briefly and then spoke these memorable words - which many football fans can still recite off the cuff today.
Of course, the "Professor", as Thon used to be called, hadn't exactly won the Champions League just a short time before, but only played a Friday evening game in the cold Park Stadium, but his sovereign answer to the reporter's slightly heretical question is still cult.
The calm nature of Olaf Thon, on the other hand, was never the thing for Bielefeld's coach of the century, Ernst Middendorp. Always striving to be perceived accordingly, he had already made it clear to the assembled media representatives at a press conference in the spring of 1988 that further good cooperation would also depend on supposedly small things: "My name is Middendorp! M-i-d-d-e-n-d-o-r-p! I say this expressly because it has already trouble three times."
The Arminen coach finally became legendary almost ten years later when, on November 22, 1997, he folded up a reporter from Radio Bielefeld using every trick in the book. After Arminia had won at 1. FC Köln, Middendorp - emotionally extremely pumped - tore the poor man's recording device to the side and shouted: "Get lost, you asshole, you pig, take the microphone away!" And because Middendorp was just going so well, he finally added the sentence that had meanwhile matured into a dictum: "Kneel down, you bratwurst!"
At the press conference that followed, Bielefeld's coach finally overflowed when he really "puked up" and attacked the assembled journalists verbally and head-on. He made the freak out of the season back then. Afterwards, his friend and then manager of Arminia, Rüdiger Lamm, tried to keep Middendorp out of the line of fire when he said: "Such stories only come about because you don't know him." Unfortunately, this was an extremely desperate attempt. Only a few weeks earlier, Lamm himself had given a reporter from Radio Bielefeld the not very nice request: "Lick me where you like it best!"
In Austria, for a while it was considered good manners that footballers, trainers and officials no longer simply accepted every question from a journalist. The former player and coach of TSV 1860 Munich, Peter Pacult, afforded new freaks almost every week. Once he put the Sky reporter Matthias Folkmann in his place with the following saying: "So much stupidity as you say there is borderline."
A short conversation with the player Günther Neukirchner, which took place after a derby between Sturm Graz and Grazer AK, is also legendary in Austria - and is very reminiscent of the situation from last Saturday in Paris. Reporter: "0:4 in the derby against GAK... Günther Neukirchner, how happy are you that the referee has now blown the whistle?" Neukirchner: "What's the point of the question now? What's the question for now? Explain that to me! Should we be happy now if we lose 4-0 or what? A few of us are fed up, we make major mistakes, We don't need to say more, but you don't need to ask me the question now." Interviewer: "Well, weren't you afraid of an even greater defeat, that's the impression you got at the end..." Neukirchner: "That's the next dumb question... can't you think of anything smarter now?"
Lothar Matthäus also fell out of his skin one or the other time in front of the camera. This was also the case eleven years ago in the spring before a Champions League game. But this video was not actually intended for the public - but subsequently became a viral hit. The world champion from 1990 had traveled there in the mistaken belief that he had been booked as an expert for the Arabic TV channel Al-Jazeera that evening. To clear up the misunderstanding, Matthew was connected to a superior by telephone. Now the Franconian could no longer be held back: "Hey, hey - I tell you something now. I stay in Munich only for this fucking job tonight. I canceled ... I calm down, sorry. You give me nothing, sorry. You think you can play with me, I'm not a child. I respect you a lot. You don't respect me now at this moment. Okay, finish, it's okay."
The furious excitement was reminiscent of another legendary scene by Lothar Matthäus many years earlier in Karlsruhe. At that time, the Bayern star got upset about the referee in front of the TV camera on the broadcaster "Premiere": "It's cheeky what he whistles. Only for one direction. Yellow card for us, red card for us, he A free kick that wasn't one. It whistles everything against us. A cheek. That's work where you perform. Saturday afternoon. And a man in the stadium robs the players of their performance, their bonus and everything. And that's an absolute cheek . And if the DFB doesn't slowly intervene against something like that, then I don't understand it anymore."
The then Wolfsburg coach Klaus Augenthaler showed in a unique way how to elegantly avoid unpleasant reporter questions. The coach celebrated his last major appearance with the Wolves at the end of the 2006/07 season with a show that was as brilliant as it was entertaining. He sat on the stage for exactly 42 seconds at the press conference: "Hello! Gentlemen, there are four questions and four answers. I ask the questions and I also give the answers. The mood of the team, how is the mood of the team, the state the team? The team did an excellent job. Tactics: one or two strikers? That depends on the personnel situation - one or the other is injured. How I expect the opponent: Aachen will certainly put pressure on, Aachen must We're prepared to win the game. Can the team take the pressure? What I observed during the week in training: The team worked very well and will give the answer on the pitch. Thank you!"
Maybe also an idea for Toni Kroos soon? Just give the press representatives a slip of paper with appropriate questions in advance and then present the previously worked out answers with a smile? It might even be quite fun!
