Bernd Schuster

Bernd Schuster (born December 22, 1959 in Augsburg) is a German football coach and former player.

Schuster started his professional career with 1. FC Köln in 1978 winning his first championship with the club the same year. He left Köln in 1980 after having performed splendidly at the finals of Euro 80 in Italy, which was won by West Germany. Schuster only played in two of the Germans' four games, the 3-2 win over Holland in the first round and the 2-1 defeat of Belgium in the final, but performed brilliantly both times.

After the tournament, he was then signed by FC Barcelona, where he flourished. During his career, he played for clubs such as Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid and Bayer Leverkusen. In the UEFA Golden Jubilee Poll, where people voted to name the finest European players of the last 5 decades, he finished 40th.

He won only 21 caps for the West German national team. He retired from international football at the extremely young age of 24, due to his repeated disagreements with the German Football Association DFB and the then national team manager Jupp Derwall. His final cap came against France in early 1984, so he did not participate at the FIFA World Cup in Mexico 1986 (West Germany lost the final against Argentina 2-3) and Italy 1990 (Germany became world champion), although he was one of the best football player of Europe at that time.

During his heyday as a player Schuster and his wife, Gaby, were renowned celebrities in Germany, both sporting bleached blond mop tops, designer clothing and expensive jewellery and never missing a party for everything. Gaby had a controversial reputation, especially when she took over the job as her husband's manageress, and was soon labelled by the press as being "Bernd's dragon-like boss" without whom he would never even sign a bill in a restaurant. During the Schusters' residence in Spain, Gaby was also notorious for her rude and sneer (and often public) interferences and comments she made about Udo Lattek's (who was coach of FC Barcelona at that time) or even Jupp Derwall's every sporty decision concerning Bernd Schuster.

Gaby and Bernd Schuster are still married. They have four children. Unsurprisingly, Gaby is still her husband's manager these days.

After his retirement from the game in 1997, Schuster coached several clubs, as of June 2006 he is with Getafe CF with whom he agreed until 2007.