Erwin Waldner

This article explains the national soccer player who was born in 1933. For his son, born in 1966, see Erwin Waldner junior .

Erwin Waldner
Erwin Waldner during his time at VfB in 1959
Personnel
birthday	January 24, 1933
place of birth	Neckarhausen ,  German Empire
date of death	April 18, 2015
Place of death	Nürtingen ,  Germany
position	striker
Juniors
Years	station
1943-1952	TB Neckarhausen
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1952-1960	VfB Stuttgart	214 (85)
1960-1961	FC Zurich	26 (27)
1961-1963	SPAL Ferrara	18 0(2)
1963-1967	VfB Stuttgart	63 (12)
1967-19 ??	FV Ebingen
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1954-1958	Germany	13 0(2)
1 Only league games are given.

Erwin Waldner (born January 24, 1933 in Neckarhausen , today in Nürtingen ; † April 18, 2015 there ) was a German football player.

Career

society

Georg Wurzer , the coach of VfB Stuttgart at the time, brought Waldner, then 19, from TB Neckarhausen to VfB. In his first season, 1952/53, he played all the games in the championship team at that time as a striker and by 1960 made more than 300 appearances in the VfB jersey. There he won the runner-up in 1953 and the DFB Cup twice in 1954 and 1958 . He was both playmaker and goalscorer. Herbert Henzler described him in a lecture as a "legend" and "superstar" at VfB. Quote from an international match report: "... what he can do with the ball cannot be described". In addition to his technique, he impressed with his enormous speed and shooting power.

Waldner was one of the first German footballers to become a professional footballer abroad. From 1960 to 1961 he was active for FC Zurich in Switzerland (with the later national coach Köbi Kuhn ) and from 1961 to 1963 for the team of SPAL Ferrara in Italy . There he came in Serie A on 18 appearances and two goals. In 1963, Waldner returned to VfB Stuttgart to found the Bundesliga , for which he was active until 1967 and made 63 first division games and twelve goals. His coach at the time, Rudi Gutendorf, described him as a “world class player” in a television interview. As an amateur he later ran for FV Ebingen (coach: Bernd Hoss ).

National team

Waldner played 13 times in the German national team and scored two international goals. He was almost 13 years younger than Fritz Walter and suitable for the position of playmaker. In the international match against the Soviet Union in Düsseldorf in 1956 (1: 2), he was "the best man on the pitch" according to eyewitnesses and match reports. However, Sepp Herberger did not hold on to him, although according to the opinion of football experts he was “the best player in his position (right wing) in Germany at the time” (DFB Journal on the international match between Germany and Ireland in Stuttgart 2006). After Helmut Schön became national coach in 1964, Waldner was again offered the opportunity to play in the national team because of his outstanding performance in the Bundesliga . Waldner declined because he considered this chapter to be closed.

Others

Since the end of his career, Waldner has been running the Burrenhof restaurant on the Swabian Alb not far from the Hohenneuffen ruins near his home town of Nürtingen . He had been suffering from Parkinson's disease since 1998 . On the occasion of his 75th birthday, a benefit game took place in his hometown on July 13, 2008, at which the sports area was renamed the Erwin-Waldner Stadium.

During the women's soccer World Cup 2011, the philatelic exhibition Erwin Waldner - a soccer legend of VfB Stuttgart and the German national team took place in the Gärtner Philately in Bietigheim-Bissingen .

His son Erwin Waldner junior became German A youth champion and played in the 2nd Bundesliga .

Waldner died on April 18, 2015.

successes

• DFB Cup winners 1954 and 1958

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Deep mourning for Erwin Waldner ( Memento of the original from April 19, 2015 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. VfB Stuttgart website, accessed on April 20, 2015 
2. ↑ Stuttgarter Nachrichten, Stuttgart Germany: Erwin Waldner is dead: mourning a VfB legend. Retrieved September 18, 2019 . 

Web links

• Erwin Waldner in the database of fussballdaten.de
• Erwin Waldner in the database of weltfussball.de
• Homepage of Erwin Waldner