German coach Heiko Herrlich has arrived in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, to take over as the new Zamalek coach and to embark on a new mission in his career after a long journey at the stadiums.

After his arrival at Mahrouza’s lands, Herrlich is expected to hold a meeting with White Castle officials to officially sign training contracts for the Egyptian league title holder in the coming season.

The technical committee to select the Zamalek coach chose the German name after Portuguese Josvaldo Ferreira, who was sacked for poor results.

Ferreira’s third stint with Zamalek officially comes to an end

In the following lines, “Winwin” reviews the perspective of Zamalek’s new coach, Heiko Herrlich, both as a player and as a coach, and we also give a brief overview of his history.

Who is Heiko Herrlich, Zamalek’s new coach?

Zamalek’s new coach, Heiko Herrlich, is from Germany and is 51 years old. He was born on December 3, 1971 in Mannheim, Germany.

Herrlich received his coaching license in 2005 and later coached the youth team of German club Borussia Dortmund.

The German began his coaching career with the Germany U-17 national team in 2007, winning third place in the same age group at the 2007 World Cup in South Korea, and then taking over the Germany U-19 youth team in 2009.

Herrlich subsequently coached Bochum (2009–2010), Unterhaching (2011–2012), Bayern Munich U17s (2013–2015) and Jan Regensburg (2015–2017).

In the summer of 2017, the 51-year-old returned to Bayer Leverkusen, where he represented as a player, to take over as the team’s coach before being sacked in December 2018 due to poor results.

His last training station was two years ago with the German team Augsburg, he trained on March 10, 2020, he was fired on April 26, 2021 and has been unemployed for the past two years.

Zamalek’s new coach, Heiko Herrlich, was content with his World Cup record with the German youth team, winning a bronze medal at the 2007 Under-17 World Cup, and did not win any titles at coaching level.

Who was Heiko Herlich player?

Heiko Herrlich had an illustrious professional career in the German league, most notably with Borussia Dortmund, and also represented Bayer Leverkusen and Borussia Mönchengladbach.

Before his retirement, Zamalek’s new coach made 258 appearances in the Bundesliga between 1989 and 2004, scoring 75 goals in the competition, most of them in a Dortmund shirt, in which he featured twice and won the title. In addition to winning the 1996 and 2002 European Champions League and the 1997 Intercontinental Cup, Herrlich announced his retirement from football a year earlier in 2004 at the age of 31.

Strange circumstances in the life of Heiko Herrlich

Zamalek’s new coach Heiko Herrlich is known for his controversial personality, with his former teammate Martin Dahl saying of him in previous reports: “He is a mysterious man and his behavior is very strange.”

Herrlich has been the hero of many strange situations in his life, most notably when the German league resumed in 2020 when he was Augsburg’s technical director in light of the corona pandemic, when he broke the quarantine rules at the time by leaving the hotel to buy toothpaste from a supermarket.

The incident led to the coach being officially condemned by the Bundesliga league and his club, who withdrew from the squad after competition resumed as he entered a new 14-day quarantine.

Herrlich said of the incident: “In this situation I could not act as an example to everyone, and I will own up to the mistake because I did it wrong.”

Another strange incident happened to him during a training session at Bayer Leverkusen in 2017, when he was pushed slightly on the touchline by Dennis Zakaria and the Borussia Mönchengladbach player quickly went to retrieve the ball, causing the coach to fall to the ground. Pushed the referee to eject Zakaria.

For that behavior, Herrlich was fined 12,000 euros, later commenting on the incident, “It certainly seemed stupid, and I want to apologize for that.”

Heiko Herrlich’s career as a player was not without strange situations, after the Dortmund player scored two early goals against Bayern Munich’s historic goalkeeper Oliver Kahn in 1999, the latter was surprised to bite him after a joint ball between them.

Herrlich, commenting on the incident, admitted that Oliver intended to provoke Kahn: “He didn’t bite me, he did. Anyway, nothing was lost from my neck. I know he was irritated by too many balls, and because of that he lost his temper.”

In addition, the German coach won a battle with a brain tumor in 2000, which he described as “the worst moment of his life”, and received a warm welcome from Schalke – Dortmund’s rivals after his recovery. She has also worked as an ambassador for many charities fighting cancer. She always strives to inspire patients to take care of their physical fitness.