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Banach has a fatal accident: the day on which Cologne’s hope died

Banach has a fatal accident
The day when Cologne’s hope died

Maurice Banach is about to be appointed to the national team. The striker is “one of the very best in the penalty area,” says national coach Vogts. He is “Lewandowski and Müller” in one person, says world champion Littbarski about the person who died in an accident 30 years ago today.

Even after 30 years, Erich Rutemöller is still highly emotional. “Whenever I drive past the scene of the accident, I say a little prayer,” says the long-time Bundesliga coach: “Still, after all these years.” The accident site in question is on the A1 at Remscheid. Here, 30 years ago, professional footballer Maurice Banach had a fatal accident at the age of 24. On November 17, 1991, the striker’s car from 1. FC Köln broke out, hit a bridge wall and immediately went up in flames. Banach left a wife and two sons, three years and nine months old.

In the recently published book “Maurice Banach: They called him Mucki”, the authors Ralf Friedrichs and Thomas Reinscheid spoke to many companions. The stories of the widow Claudia Weigl-Banach are particularly moving. Her husband drove off to Cologne for training that morning from his hometown of Münster. Usually she and the two sons always come with us. “I’m going to training alone, you can stay here. I’ll be back today at noon,” he said that morning. It was his last word to the family.

Somebody like Lewandowski and Müller, like Gnabry and Sané

Udo Lattek at Banach’s funeral in Münster.

(Photo: imago images / Dahmen)

The sporty companions also tell of a person everyone liked. “He was our mood cannon, our joker – when things didn’t go that way, he cheered everyone up,” said teammate Falko Götz. But Banach also had a great career ahead of him. At the time of the accident he was second on the list of goalscorers behind Dortmund’s Stéphane Chapuisat, a nomination for the national team seemed a matter of time.

There were top dogs in Jürgen Klinsmann, Rudi Völler and Karl-Heinz Riedle. But national coach Berti Vogts, who also attended the funeral, had already publicly stated that Banach was “one of the very best in the penalty area”. And Rutemöller, who later worked for the DFB for many years, assures: “He would definitely have become a national player very soon, I’m quite sure of that.”

The 1990s world champion Pierre Littbarski, then Banach’s team-mate, explains that he “seldom seen” the combination of Banach’s strengths. He was “quasi Thomas Müller and Robert Lewandowski in one person”. In the eyes of teammate Alfons Higl “he had something of Serge Gnabry or Leroy Sané”.

Cologne’s crash follows Banach’s death

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Minute of silence at the game VfB Stuttgart against Bayer Leverkusen.

(Photo: imago / Pressefoto Baumann)

Around Cologne, many see Banach’s tragic accident as a reason for the downfall of FC, which was runner-up in 1990 and made it to the European Cup semi-finals. At the time of the accident, FC were eleventh, with a defiant reaction the team reached the UEFA Cup. It was the last entry into the European Cup for 25 years, of all times in the year the Champions League was introduced.

With “Mucki” Banach the development might have gone in a different direction, believes Christoph Daum. “I can understand that this downturn is also associated with Maurice Banach,” says the coach, who signed the striker from Wattenscheid, but was dismissed before his arrival: “He was one of the most hopeful talents we have That would have been for years – if Bayern Munich hadn’t come up with a horrific offer – an uncanny bargaining chip for 1. FC Köln to continue to be among the top players The decline of 1. FC Köln at the beginning of the nineties. “

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