Sepp Piontek


Josef Emanuel Hubertus "Sepp" Piontek is a German former footballer and manager.

Career

Playing career

Born in Breslau, now Wroclaw, Piontek is a son of Leonard Piontek, a Polish interwar footballer. Piontek started his playing career with VfL Germania Leer. Between 1963 and 1972, the full-back played 203 Bundesliga matches with 14 goals for SV Werder Bremen, adding six caps for the West German national team.

Coaching career

After retiring he managed, in Germany, Werder Bremen, and later Fortuna Düsseldorf and FC St. Pauli. In 1979, Piontek became Danish national team coach after having previously managed Haiti. He sat through 115 international matches, leading Denmark to their first ever World Cup participation in the 1986 tournament. His period as national team coach came just after the introduction of professional players in the national team, and under his reign the Denmark team became known as "Danish Dynamite". He quit as Denmark coach in April 1990 after the Danish national team failed to qualify for 1990 FIFA World Cup, and later coached Turkey from May 1990 to 1993.
In the 1990s, Piontek returned to Denmark, where he coached Danish clubs Aalborg BK and Silkeborg IF, and subsequently worked with the Greenland national team. He currently earns a living as a lecturer.

Honours

Player

Werder Bremen