Dynamo Dresden starts the new season on Saturday after being relegated to the third division. The first opponent will then be co-favorite 1860 Munich (2 p.m. / ARD). The coach at the Saxons is now Markus Anfang, who was banned by the DFB until June of this year because of a fake vaccination card last fall and is now, like his club, about to make a new start.
Dynamo is his first coaching station in the new federal states. But the people in the east are no strangers to him. In 2004 he played for Energie Cottbus in the second division for half a year and met one of his predecessors as Dynamo coach: Eduard Geyer.
Beginning can still remember the first encounter with the idiosyncratic coach. “I came to Cottbus from Kaiserslautern back then,” he says. “We went to the training ground, everyone had to take their ball with them. Ede was the last to go. I had discussions, it was my first training session. On the way to the training ground, he overtook me and locked the door in front of me, ”Fang says with a laugh.
At that time he didn’t find it so funny to be the only one standing in front of a locked door. “What’s going on now, coach?” asked Beginning, and Geyer replied: “If you’re late for training, how are you going to get to the game on time?” Geyer himself can’t remember this anecdote, but thinks so : “I always had an allergic reaction when a player was late. Everyone had to be there at least an hour before training.”
In the beginning he had positive memories despite this unfortunate start. “He always wanted to get involved and contribute something,” says Geyer. “When we were rehearsing tactical things, he was always very inquisitive. But I would not have guessed at the time that he would one day pursue a career as a coach. I couldn’t have guessed that at the time.”
Beginning took a lot from his short time with Geyer. “Ede was very consistent in his own way, very hard in training,” says the 48-year-old, who has known since then that a session can go longer. “Not just 90 minutes, his training sometimes went over two hours,” recalls Beginning. “The lunch break was very short. He said that a soup is eaten quickly.”
Geyer knows that he was not always popular with his teams as a coach. “In Cottbus we had many players who came through passion, motivation and a sense of togetherness, and not through talent. That’s why we had to train a lot in the basics,” he says, adding: “Players who came from the West weren’t used to training longer and more. You were spoiled.”
In total, Beginning made eight games for Cottbus, after six months he moved to Duisburg. “Most of the players got better during their time in Cottbus. This also applies to Markus Beginning. He always thought very hard about his football game,” said Geyer.
He wishes Dynamo and his former player promotion, but: “It will be difficult. A lot of teams want to go up,” says the 77-year-old, who still goes to the stadium regularly. Geyer does not want to judge whether Beginning is the right man for Dynamo after the vaccination pass affair. “He definitely deserves a chance,” says the former coach, for example in Cologne the beginning did a good job. “There he was dismissed as the leader of the table. The whole world didn’t understand that,” says Geyer.
At Dynamo, Beginning now has to find its own style. “He has to drive such a clear line that results come out at the end,” explains Geyer. Beginning himself would like to meet up with him again sometime, have a coffee and chat about old times. “But then I have the key,” says the Dynamo coach.
