[Oliver_Kahn]

bundesliga.de takes a look back into time. In 1968, 1. FC Nürnberg won their only Bundesliga title, only to be relegated the next season!


After avoiding relegation in 1967, Nuremberg rose like a Phoenix from the ashes to win the Bundesliga a season later, and Austrian coach Max Merkel was the toast of the town!

With four wins and a draw, their season started well, and Nuremberg kept up the pace to secure their sole championship since the Bundesliga was introduced in 1963. Horst Leupold was a member of that title-winning team.

"Of course there was a lot of excitement, not only in the team, but also from the fans in the city and region. Everyone was thrilled. We played terrific football, and we really did have a super team, with good players in every position. Naturally, this was a career highlight for every player. And we all enjoyed it.”

It was the coach who was the superstar. Max Merkel managed to form a formidable squad with relatively unknown players. Leading Nuremberg to the title earned him the nickname "Creator of Champions".

"Max Merkel was a very egoistical person, who only strived for success. He couldn't live with failure. In our title-winning year, he only fielded thirteen different players. He rarely changed the line-up, and we were lucky with that. We had no major injuries", reflects Leupold.

Horst Leupold was one of those players in the regular first team line-up.

But after a season full of glory, Nuremberg found themselves back in the thick of a relegation battle. Nobody, including Max Merkel, had predicted such a decline.

"First of all, we are happy that the season is over, and in a way that we had wished for: with the championship. Now a new phase will begin, and I believe we will see new players integrated into the team", Merkel said back then.

"I respected Max Merkel, but I didn't understand why so many new players joined us after we won the title. He then said he 'wanted to make a symphony orchestra out of a farmer's band'. He brought in average players, which led to a split in the team. In the end, we no longer had a team.”

Nuremberg crashed to the bottom of the table, and were relegated in 1969. Pictures of Leupold leaving the pitch after relegation filled newspapers and TV reports alike.

"Of course, being relegated was hard. We never believed it would happen, until it really did! We had a theoretical chance of staying up going into the last game of the season. But we went down, and for us players, it was like our world had fallen apart.”

Nuremberg are still the only champions to have been relegated the following season. The club needed years to get over the trauma of a shock demise.

Marx Merkel died on Tuesday, November 28th 2006, just 99 days prior to his 88th birthday.