National football team of the GDR (U-17 juniors)

GDR

Association	German Football Association
confederacy	UEFA
FIFA code	GDR
(As of communications came into effect on 20th November 1990 the DFB in. )

The U-17 national soccer team of the GDR was a selection team of soccer players from the GDR . As a younger junior selection, she belonged to the German Football Association and represented it internationally at the U-17 level . This happened primarily in friendly matches against the selection teams of other national associations , but also within the European Championship qualification .

history

The players in this team were particularly recruited from the football clubs. With these, they competed in GDR football in the junior league (1969 to 1976 and 1983 to 1989) or the junior league (AK 17/18), where they were younger in the republic-wide league of the country's best 17 and 18-year-old footballers Vintage counted. In the youth league , which was reintroduced in 1989 , primarily talents in age groups 17 and 18 were also planned, but they could be reinforced by up to four older players.

Since during the existence of the GDR today's U-17 World Championships and U-17 European Championships were still held at U-16 level, his so-called older youth team represented the DFV in these tournaments .

When the then U-18 European Championship was extended to a two-year cycle from the mid-1980s , the DFV-U-17 played the qualification in the season that preceded the season with the final round and then traded the following year as U- 18 . Thus, unlike in the 1984/86 competition, all players who began the elimination remained eligible to play in the decisive games.

As early as October 1986 - while the U-19s were still preparing for the very late final of the previous European Championships - the class around Frank Schulze , Mario Kern , Steffen Karl and Uwe Jähnig with coach Lothar Priebe started the qualifying for the U-18 European Championship 1988 . In May 1988 the victory in group 5 could be secured.

It was similar in the qualification for the 1990 European Junior Championship , which was initially started by the U-17s with coach Frank Engel in the 1988/89 season with players like Tom Persich , Daniel Hoffmann and Sven Ratke and Nico Däbritz (both SG Dynamo Dresden ) . From the 1989/90 season - Claus Kreul had replaced Engel, who had migrated to BSG Chemie Böhlen, as coach of this year - the same group of players acted as the older junior selection in preliminary group 5 for the DFV. In contrast to the 1988 edition, which ended with bronze for the GDR juniors, this U-18 national team failed to qualify for the finals for the first time since 1983 after three successful attempts in a row .

At the time of the turnaround , the younger junior selection was coached by Heinz Werner , who was responsible for the A selection together with Manfred Zapf and Frank Engel in the first half of 1989 . Consisting of the birth cohorts 1972 and 1973, the last GDR U-17s before reunification included the future professionals Frank Rost and Rico Kauerhof from 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig as well as René Rydlewicz and Toralf Konetzke (both BFC Dynamo ).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Manfred Binkowski: Triple European Championship start. In: fuwo - The new football week . Sep. 30, 1986, p. 13.
2. ↑ Manfred Binkowski: A good start is important. In: fuwo - The new football week . Oct 11, 1988, p. 13.
3. ↑ fuwo - The new football week . Oct 10, 1989, p. 13.