Wroclaw Elf

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The "Olympic Stadium" in Breslau (1937 Hermann Göring Stadium ) with a bell tower

The German national soccer team that beat Denmark 8-0 in a friendly match on May 16, 1937 in the Silesian town of Breslau is called the Breslau-Elf . The game of the German team is still considered one of their best appearances. The appointment interrupted the ongoing German soccer championship .

prehistory

The German national team reached third place at the 1934 World Cup under Reich coach Otto Nerz (3-2 against Austria ). At the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936 , the team was eliminated in the quarter-finals (0-2 against Norway ). The German team was able to win the two international matches before Breslau with difficulty 1-0 (against Belgium and Switzerland ).

The Danish team had previously been undefeated in four games since November 1935.

German team

The team of the coaching duo Sepp Herberger (Reichstrainer) and Otto Nerz (advisor for the national team), who have been working together since November 2, 1936, sat down. a. still made up of seven players who surprisingly achieved third place at the 1934 World Cup in Italy ( Jakob , Janes , Münzenberg , Goldbrunner , Lehner , Siffling and Szepan ). It was supplemented by other players who had also all played in the national team before, such as the Schweinfurt runners Kitzinger ( injured in the Olympic Games in 1936 ) and Kupfer (national players since 1937) and Schalke Gellesch and Urban (both national players since 1935) . Then there was the substitute player Franz Elbern from SV Beuel 06 (also a national player since 1935).

The German team played with the following line-up (clubs of origin in brackets):

Course of the game

The German team managed to create a fast game in which all the players were constantly on the move. The ball could be held securely and passed in short passes. The Danes had little to oppose and could not sort themselves. The first goal for Germany came in the 7th minute (Lehner), further great chances followed, but Otto Siffling only scored the second goal in the 33rd minute, who then scored four more times (40th and 44th minute in the first , 48th and 65th in the second half). Much of the game took place in the Danish half, while the German goal was rarely in danger. Urban (70th) and Szepan (78th) made the final score.

Game dates

Germany Denmark
GermanyGermany
Friendly match
Sunday, May 16, 1937 at 4:00 p.m. in Breslau ( Hermann Göring Stadium )
Result: 8: 0 (4: 0)
Spectators: 40,000
Referee: Gustav Krist ( Czechoslovakia ) Czechoslovakia 1920Czechoslovakia 
Match report
DenmarkDenmark


Hans Jakob , Paul Janes , Reinhold Münzenberg , Andreas Kupfer , Ludwig Goldbrunner , Albin Kitzinger , Ernst Lehner , Rudolf Gellesch , Otto Siffling , Fritz Szepan , Adolf Urban Trainers: Sepp Herberger(C)Captain of the crew
 Svend Jensen , Poul Hansen , Oscar Jørgensen , Carl Larsen , Henry Nielsen , Poul Jensen , Helmuth Søbirk , Eyolf Kleven , Pauli Jørgensen , Kaj Uldaler , Eigil Thielsen
goal1: 0 Ernst Lehner (7th)
goal2: 0 Otto Siffling (33rd)
goal3: 0 Otto Siffling (40th)
goal4: 0 Otto Siffling (44th)
goal5: 0 Otto Siffling (48th)
goal6: 0 Otto Siffling (65.)
goal7: 0 Adolf Urban (70.)
goal8: 0 Fritz Szepan (78.)

Importance and further development

For the Danish team it was the 105th international match . The 8: 0 was the biggest defeat of the Danish national team to date.

For the German team, the encounter was the 140th official game and is considered one of their best games. The team, called "Breslau-Elf" in other international matches, won ten out of eleven matches in the calendar year 1937 (plus one draw ; goal difference 36: 6), including a 3-0 win against Norway in October as revenge for the 2-0 defeat at the Olympic Games in Berlin . Of the (8-0 following) games before the 1938 World Cup, Germany won six times (including three wins in the World Cup qualification ), three times there was a draw. It wasn't until May 14, 1938, the last test match before the World Cup, that another game was lost (Berlin, 3: 6 against England ).

At the Soccer World Cup in France in 1938 , the team could not compete in the Breslau line-up, because due to the annexation of Austria to the German Reich, the team of players from Germany and Austria had to be mixed under political pressure . The result was an unexpected early failure of the German team in the first round (in the replay of the round of 16 against Switzerland ) and the end of Germany's successful streak.

Quotes

" Morning men! Tomorrow's game will be the hardest in the series of games that we had to play in May. "

- Sepp Herberger , 1937 (before the game)

“ For the Danes it may have sounded like the shrill scream of the trumpet calling for the Last Judgment, but for the Germans it was a triumphant sound. "

- FOOTBALL Week , 1937 (after the game)

“ The 'Breslau-Elf' played the modern English World Cup system with a stopper, very quickly, often directly, there was always movement, the game was torn up over the wings. Outstanding soloists repeatedly caused surprises. For the first time, a style emerged that can still be described as the 'German style' today. "

- Helmut Schön , 1980

" The name of the place and the playful feat of the German team combine to become a synonym for technically high-class German speed football: The 'Breslau-Elf' celebrates football to perfection and sends the Danes, who have been unbeaten for over a year, on their way home with an 8-0 . "

- Chronicle of German FOOTBALL, 2005

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Denmark-Germany international match, Hermann-Göring-Stadion Breslau, May 16, 1937 (poster). file1.npage.de, June 15, 2017, accessed June 15, 2017 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e Anton Kehl ( ed. ): "I was an obsessive man ..." "... one who was out after the last time." Sepp Herberger in pictures and documents , Paul List Verlag , Munich 1997, ISBN 3-471 -79346-1 , pp. 14 and 15
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Kicker Edition : 100 Years of German International Games , Olympia-Verlag , Nuremberg 2008, p. 96
  4. ↑ There was a bigger defeat for Denmark (1:11) in Copenhagen in an unofficial game on August 29, 1937 against the Basque football team .
  5. ^ History of the national team . In: German Football Association ( Ed. ): 100 Years of the DFB - The History of the German Football Association . Sportverlag Berlin, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-328-00850-0 , p. 152
  6. ↑ Helmut Schön : Football. Memories. Ullstein Verlag , Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-548-27505-2 , pp. 80 and 81.
  7. ^ The national team's games from 1908 to today , Chronik Verlag, 2005, p. 57