German football coaches in Turkey: A long history

Christoph Daum coached more Turkish Süper Lig matches (290) and won more honors than any other German coach. Daum won the Turkish league title three times, once with Besiktas and twice with Fenerbahce. He also won the Turkish Cup with Besiktas in 1994 as well as the Super Cup, which he also won with Fenerbahce in 2009. Daum also had a short spell at Buraspor.

Jupp Derwall is best remembered as coaching West Germany to the 1980 European Championship. After stepping down in 1984, he moved to Istanbul club Galatasaray, where he won the Turkish Cup in 1985. A year after losing the league title on goal difference to Besiktas, Derwall's Galatasaray won the title by one point.

Between 1978 and 1992, Karl-Heinz Feldkamp coached 280 matches over two spells at Kaiserslauten. Late in his career, though, he followed the call to Turkey. His greatest success there came in the 1992-93 season, when he led Galatasaray to the league and cup double. His stint at city rivals Besiktas in 1999-2000 lasted just 15 matches.

Long before winning the World Cup with Germany in 2014, Joachim Löw coached in Germany, Austria – and Turkey. Löw, who won the German Cup with Stuttgart in 1997 and the Austrian Bundesliga with Innsbruck in 2002, had less success with Fenerbahce, where he signed on in 1998. Third place in the league wasn't good enough to earn him a contract beyond his one season in Istanbul.

Famous for leading Bochum to the second-division title, things went sour for Thomas Reis (red sweater) in their second season in the top flight. An engagement at Schalke ended with their relegation – and Reis out of work. In the summer of 2024, Reis took over Süper Lig club Samsunspor from fellow German Markus Gisdol and led them to a third-place finish in his first season in charge.

Markus Gisdol, who formerly coached Hoffenheim, Hamburg and Cologne, is now on to his second Turkish club. Gisdol actually left Germany for Lokomotive Moscow in 2021, but just days after Russia invaded Ukraine, he tendered his resignation. Having saved Samsunpor from the drop in 2023-24, Gisdol turned down a contract extension over the summer to join fellow Süper Lig side Kayserispor.

Jörg Berger was highly regarded as a coach in the former East Germany (GDR) and used a match as coach of a GDR youth team in the former Yugoslavia to flee to West Germany. He went on to coach several Bundesliga clubs before trying his luck in Turkey. After just eight matches in charge of Buraspor, he fled Turkey, saying he had been facing death threats.

Hamburg and West Germany legend Horst Hrubesch, known in his playing days as a burly striker with strong, accurate headers, made his coaching reputation as a Germany youth coach and two interim stints as coach of the women's national team. An engagement as coach of Samsungspur lasted but a few weeks before he moved on to start a long career coaching for the German FA (DFB).

Best remembered as Franz Beckenbauer's assistant when "Der Kaiser" coached West Germany to a 1990 World Cup triumph, Holger Osieck (second from left) held a number of posts as a head coach – including with the Canadian and Australian men's teams. His stints in Turkey, with Fenerbahce and Kocaelispor in the mid-late 1990s, weren't long, but he did lead Kocaelispor to a Turkish Cup win in 1997.

Michael Skibbe is perhaps seen as a better assistant coach than head coach. In 2002, he was assistant to Rüdi Völler when Germany surprisingly finished runners-up in the World Cup in Japan and South Korea. Skibbe, now coaching in Japan, spent five seasons in Turkey with three different clubs: Galatasaray (with whom he won the 2008 Supercup), Eskisehirspor and Kardemir Karabuk.

As a player, Hans-Peter Briegel was a defender or defensive midfielder who made 240 appearances for Kaiserslauten and 72 for Germany. He was also a member of the 1980 European Championship winning side. As a coach he held a number of jobs including at Turkish outfits Besiktas, Trabzonspor, Ankaragucu. He was most successful at the former, but none of his stints in Turkey lasted very long.

Domenico Tedesco had been out of work since January, when he was sacked by the Belgian FA. He replaces Jose Mourinho who was let go after he failed to lead Fenerbahce to the league phase of the Champions League. The 39-year-old previously managed Schalke, Spartak Moscow and RB Leipzig. He helped the former finish second in the Bundesliga in 2018 and won the German Cup with the latter in 2022.