Ottmar Hitzfeld, a German retired football player, was born 1949 in Lörrach, Baden.
He started his professional playing career in FV Lörrach in 1968 and stayed there until he moved to Switzerland to join FC Basel in 1971. With Basel he won two Swiss Surer Leagues and one Swiss Cup. In 1975 he went back to Germany to play for the second division side VfB Stuttgart, which succeeded to the Bundesliga in 1977 and finished fourth.
In 1978 Hitzfeld returned to Switzerland to join FC Lugano and then FC Luzern, where he finished his playing career in 1983.
Ottmar Hitzfeld started his coaching career with FC Zug in 1983 and the next year he took charge of FC Aarau and the team claimed the 1985 Swiss Cup. A major Swiss club Grasshopper in Zürich was the next club he headed since 1988 till 1991. Under his guidance the team won two Swiss Super League titles, two Swiss Cup titles and one Swiss Supercup in 1989.
In 1991 he started coaching a German Bundesliga club Borussia Dortmund and in a year they reached the UEFA Cup finals. The team became the 1994/95 and 1995/96 Bundesliga Champions and won the 1996/97 UEFA Champions League title.
In 1998 Hitzfeld accepted an offer from the German FC Bayern Munich. There he had two spells, the first one from 1998 till 2004 and the second one from 2007 till 2008. During these periods Bayern Munich five times finished Bundesliga Champions, won four DFB-Ligapokal and three DFB-Pokal, won the 2000/01UEFA Champions League title and in 2001 they won Intercontinental Cup title.
In 2008 he was announced the head coach of the Switzerland national team, which couldn’t made it through the 2010 FIFA World Cup group stage but were the only team to defeat eventual champions, Spain.
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