Then there was 1860’s coach, the idiosyncratic Austrian Max Merkel. When he first took charge of 1860, he called the club ‘the most beautiful corpse in the league’, the second time around, he told the president, a politician: ‘You know nothing about football, I know nothing about politics. Let’s make a deal: you don’t meddle in the team’s affairs, and I won’t enter parliament.’ That might give you an idea why, despite his success, he never stayed too long at any one club.
