Bernhard Steffen (soccer player)

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Bernhard Steffen (born June 1, 1937 ) is a former German soccer player . The Fortuna Düsseldorf striker, who was mostly right-winger in the World Cup system at the time, played 124 league games from 1957 to 1963 in the first-class football league West , scoring 30 goals. With the Fortuna he stood in the years 1957 , 1958 and 1962 in the German Cup final .

career

Associations until 1967

The Krefeld began his career in the amateur field at Linner SV , where he distinguished himself as a fast and dangerous striker and he had several offers from the contract player camp before the 1957/58 season. He chose Fortuna Düsseldorf and moved to Flinger Broich for the 1957/58 season and played in the Oberliga West. The former amateur player made his debut on the first round matchday, August 11, 1957, in the home game that was lost 2: 4 against 1. FC Cologne in the major league. He formed the Fortunen attack with Hans Neuschäfer , Karl Gramminger , Jupp Derwall and Heinz Janssen . The newcomer immediately belonged to the regular line-up of coach Hermann Lindemann's team. The semi-finals of the 1957 DFB Cup took place on November 24 in Hanover against Hamburger SV and Steffen stormed on the right wing in the 1-0 win of the Rhinelander as well as in the final on December 29, 1957 in Augsburg against Bayern Munich . On a snow-covered field, the Munich team around veteran Kurt Sommerlatt got along much better with the leather in almost irregular ground conditions and won the final in front of 44,000 spectators with a goal in the 77th minute. The career of the new Fortuna winger picked up speed rapidly. National coach Sepp Herberger used the 20-year-old Düsseldorf attacker as early as February 26, 1958 in the U23 junior national team at the international match against Belgium in Wuppertal. Steffen showed a convincing performance in the 4-1 win alongside attacking colleagues Willi Koslowski and Uwe Seeler and scored two goals. On April 13, 1958, he finished his debut round in the Oberliga West with a 3-2 home win against Borussia Dortmund. Düsseldorf had finished eighth and "Berni" Steffen scored six goals in 27 league games.

In his second year in Düsseldorf, 1958/59 , the fast, technically savvy attacker with good shooting power in both legs experienced the best performance of Fortuna in the Oberliga West. The start of the first half of the season was successful with 10: 2 points. After the 15th matchday, the team with the defensive greats Matthias Mauritz , Erich Juskowiak and Karl Hoffmann ranked second with 20:10 points, one point behind the autumn champion Westfalia Herne. In addition, there was the 2-1 semi-final success in the DFB Cup on October 26, 1958 at Tasmania 1900 Berlin and the final on November 16 in the Kassel Auestadion against VfB Stuttgart. The Düsseldorf team dominated in the beginning, but the second half developed into an open exchange of blows against VfB, trained by coach Georg Wurzer , with exciting goalscoring, extra time and tragic moments. VfB goalkeeper Günter Sawitzki was in top form and robbed the fortunes of the nerve. Coach Lindemann's men had to contend with unlucky injuries. Düsseldorf's ailing national player Erich Juskowiak had only been able to continue as an extra after the break, and no sooner had the outnumbered Rhinelander turned their deficit into a 2-1 lead when “Kalli” Hoffmann, Düsseldorf's strongest player to date, was also out. The Stuttgart won the DFB Cup in 1958 with 4: 3 goals after extra time. In the second half of the season, Steffen and colleagues lost the decisive home game against their rival for the runner-up, 1. FC Köln, with 3: 4 goals on matchday 28, April 5, 1959. In front of 56,000 spectators, Georg Stollenwerk decided the game for Cologne with a goal to make it 4: 3 in the 85th minute. Fortuna was now in third place, tied with 35:21 points each. The two final away wins against Schalke 04 (3: 2) and Meidericher SV (5: 0) didn't change anything in terms of placement; Düsseldorf was denied entry into the final round of the German championship. The attack series with Steffen (26-7), Josef Wolfframm (29-25), Heinz Jansen (30-17), Jupp Derwall (27-17) and left winger Dieter Wöske (27-10) was mainly responsible for the record result of 89 goals this season been.

But things turned out to be even worse for Steffen and colleagues: In the next round they unexpectedly descended from the second to last in the second league west. The right winger had played 29 league games and scored five goals in the desolate season. Before the 1959/60 season , Fortuna had treated itself to a "season preparation" in Ghana. At Bolten and Langer, Steffen is quoted with the explanatory statement: “Too many games, commitments, humidity, etc. did not allow a targeted development program. From my point of view, the reason for the bad form in the 1959/60 season was the trip to Africa intended as preparation for the season ”. Under the new coach Fritz Pliska and with newcomers such as Hilmar Hoffer and Hermann Straschitz , he immediately returned as second league runner-up in 1960/61. Steffen had played all 30 league games and scored eight goals. In the last two rounds of the old first-class Oberliga era, 1961 to 1963, Düsseldorf did not get beyond midfield and could therefore not qualify for the new performance class of the Bundesliga that started in 1963/64 . The 1962 DFB Cup became the sporting highlight. With a 3-2 semi-final win, they played their way into the final on August 22, 1962 against FC Schalke 04. But Steffen also lost the third cup final; 1. FC Nürnberg prevailed on August 29, 1962 in Hanover with a 2-1 after extra time. The chapter Oberliga West closed "Berni" Steffen in the summer of 1963 with a total of 124 league games with 30 goals and went into the second division of the new regional football league West with the red-whites .

Under coach Kuno Klötzer it was enough for third place in the first two rounds, Steffen had played 59 association games and scored eleven goals. In the third year Regionalliga, 1965/66 , Steffen had to fight injuries and could only play twelve rounds and contribute two goals to the championship win. In the promotion round he was in the game against FK Pirmasens (2: 3) and the two clashes against Hertha BSC (4: 1; a goal by Steffen / 2: 3) on the field and thus helped his Fortuna to rise to the Bundesliga. During the promotion lap, he suffered an Achilles tendon injury that forced him to file for sports disability a year later. Although he officially belonged to the Bundesliga squad in 1966/67, he could no longer play a game.

Selection appointments

Four weeks after the first international junior game on February 26th, the Düsseldorf wing hope stormed in a test match on March 26th in Basel in a German B selection against a Swiss selection. In the German 2-1 success, he played in a series of attacks alongside Helmut Rahn , Ulrich Biesinger , Willi Soya and Hans Cieslarczyk . On April 2, 1958, he played his first international match in Prague in a 3-2 defeat against Czechoslovakia . In addition to Steffen, national coach Sepp Herberger also brought Karl-Heinz Schnellinger and Hans Sturm to their national team debut. In mid-April he was reported to FIFA for the 1958 World Cup in Sweden in the 40-man squad. From May 12th to 24th, he took part in the World Cup course in the Munich-Grünwald sports school, which Herberger held with 25 players. As wingers, Rahn, Bernhard Klodt , Wolfgang Peters , Hans Schäfer , Cieslarczyk and Steffen von Herberger were put through their paces. But it shouldn't be enough for him for the 1958 World Cup in Sweden. The national coach decided on Rahn, Klodt, Cieslarczyk and Schäfer and Peters from Dortmund was still on call back home.

After the World Cup, Steffen came to Kiel for his second assignment in the U23 on September 23, 1958; he played his third and fourth junior international match in May and November 1959, respectively. On May 11, 1960, he played a second and last time for the senior national team of the DFB in the 0-1 home defeat in Düsseldorf against Ireland. From May 7th, the final round of the German soccer championship was running and the DFB-Elf started attacking with Steffen, Aki Schmidt , Albert Brülls , Helmut Haller and Heinz Vollmar . With the use in the representative game on December 17, 1960 in Hanover in the attack of the selection of West Germany in the 1-1 draw against North Germany, the selection games of "Berni" Steffen ended.

His son Horst also became a soccer player and played a total of 207 games (16 goals) in the Bundesliga for the clubs KFC Uerdingen 05, Borussia Mönchengladbach and MSV Duisburg.

Profession and trainer

During his time as a contract player, he kept an eye on his studies, which later earned him a position at Stadtwerke Düsseldorf, where he became an authorized signatory. As a trainer, he worked for many years in the youth division of Bayer Uerdingen as well as SV Neukirchen. In later years he dedicated himself to golf.

literature

  • Lorenz Knieriem, Hardy Grüne : Player Lexicon 1890 - 1963 . In: Encyclopedia of German League Football . tape 8 . AGON, Kassel 2006, ISBN 3-89784-148-7 .
  • Michael Bolten, Marco Langer: "Everything else is just football". The story of Fortuna Düsseldorf. Publishing house Die Werkstatt. Göttingen 2005. ISBN 978-3-89533-711-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Matthias Weinrich, Hardy Greens : Encyclopedia of German League Football. Volume 6: German Cup history since 1935. Pictures, statistics, stories, constellations. Agon-Sportverlag, Kassel 2000, ISBN 3-89784-146-0 , p. 145.
  2. ↑ Jürgen Bitter : Germany's national soccer player: the lexicon . SVB Sportverlag, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-328-00749-0 , p. 467 .
  3. ^ Matthias Weinrich, Hardy Greens: Encyclopedia of German League Football. Volume 6: German Cup history since 1935. Pictures, statistics, stories, constellations. Agon-Sportverlag, Kassel 2000, ISBN 3-89784-146-0 , p. 151.
  4. ↑ Bolten, Langer: Everything else is just football. P. 126.
personal data
SURNAME Steffen, Bernhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH June 1, 1937