Giovane Elber switched from VfB Stuttgart to FC Bayern Munich and blew up the magic triangle. But it shouldn’t have gotten that far.
Stuttgart – The force of the magic triangle was unbelievable! In the 1996/97 season, the trio scored the VfB Stuttgart believe it or not 49 goals.
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Fredi Bobic (50, left) is now manager at Hertha BSC, Krassimir Balakow (55) was coach of 1. FC Kaiserslautern for a few games in 2012. © Tom Weller/dpa/Sebastian Kahnert dpa/lbn
This put Fredi Bobic (50), Giovane Elber (49) and Krassimir Balakov (55) in first, second and fourth place in the scorer list.
The three understood each other blindly, everyone knew what he had to do.
Playmaker Balakov served his balls with pinpoint accuracy, Bobic and Elber netted.
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A recipe for success that even brought the Swabians a title in 1997: With coach Jogi Löw (61), VfB and the Magic Triangle celebrated winning the DFB Cup.
In the final, Stuttgart beat the then third-division side Energie Cottbus 2-0. Elber scored twice.
It was his last goals in VfB dress, because the FC Bayern Munich snapped up the Brazilian for the following season. A departure that would have been avoidable from Elber’s point of view.
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Giovane Elber (49) appeared again in VfB dress in a legends game in 2018. © Marijan Murat/dpa
This was also confirmed by Bobic in a triple interview with the Sports picture. He revealed that he was “upset” with the Stuttgart management at the time.
Bobic continued: “You were looking for talks with Giovane too late. It was a question of timing! They could have blindly told the three of us: We’ll keep you! But VfB just needed money, Giovane has twelve million Deutschmarks Fee taken.”
Meanwhile, Elber said that he panicked after the decision to change and therefore sought a conversation with Bobic. “I told him, ‘I can’t do this! I’m staying here.’ He said, ‘You’ve made your decision, there’s no turning back! You’ll get it!’ I wanted to back out at the time.”
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But even with Bayern Elber became a club legend. He scored a whopping 92 Bundesliga goals for the record champions.
The remaining duo of the Magic Triangle, on the other hand, did not go to Bayern. At 70 million marks, Balakov had an exit clause that was far too high.
And Bobic? He revealed: “There was a phone call, but for me it was almost childish: I’m a Stuttgart boy! I can’t go to Bayern, so it was quickly settled. I was a bit stubborn.”
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