East and West at Pittodrie

[SeeBass]

I'm quite intrigued regarding how good our Home record is against sides from both East and West Germany. 

 

Only Borussia Monchengladbach 6-3 in 1972 have beat us at Pittodrie.  Beating Bayern Munich 3-2 then drawing

2-2 with them plus winning over Hamburg twice (3-2,2-0) too. Fortuna Dusseldorf lost 2-0 to one followed by some 1-1 Eintracht Frankfurt stalemate.  Double Dynamo Delight where a Dresden 0-0 was bettered when Berlin came and got sent back having lost 2-1.  Who can forget that goalless Hertha encounter 2002 either!!

 

I obviously wasn't a fan when a lot of these ties took place but was there much difference between the Eastern and Western approach??  Who would be considered East and West in Bundesliga today??   

[Ten Caat]

No point comparing the relative merits of each as that was the era when East Germany ( and all Soviet satellite countries) were injecting any relatively talented sporting child from age around 6 upwards with various performance enhancing steroids/ hormones which encouraged rapid growth at puberty ( gymnastics was the exception where females had their puberties delayed). Typical East German teams consisted of 11 six foot plus athletes who could run all day long, were unbeatable in the air and could play to a strict system instilled by their coaches from an early age. Successful up to a point but eye bleedingly boring to watch. And as an aside....these athletes are all either dying off prematurely, or if they survive, suffer horrendous effects from the drugs that were injected with. Olga Korbut ( 1972 Olympic gymnastics champion) is only 63 but even aged 40 looked 20 years older than she actually was and now looks like a walking corpse.

 

SAF had our side of 82/3/4 playing in a style where we were indistinguishable from the top West German sides. Still had a tall, athletic backbone but allowed flair players like Strachan and Weir ( himself relatively physical when required) to flourish alongside. Of the Eastern European countries only Czechoslovakia as it was really embraced this in the 70s and early 80s. Romania followed suit in the mid 80s when Hagi came through but only after the end of the Soviet bloc did these countries ditch their rigid coaching regimes and end the cheating

[A llad insane]

The Borussia  Monchengldbach team that beat us at pittodrie were a class act.