Hans Weilbächer

Hans Weilbächer (born October 23, 1933 ) is a former German soccer player who was once appointed to the German national soccer team in 1955 and was German soccer champion with Eintracht Frankfurt in 1959 .

Career

Eintracht Frankfurt, 1952-1965

Hans Weilbächer, who was trained by Amicitia Hattersheim as a youth, moved to Eintracht Frankfurt in 1952. For technical reasons he had to spend the first year in the Eintracht junior team. From the round 1953/54 he played in the contract team. In the debut round he played all 30 games in the Oberliga Süd and contributed nine goals to winning the runner-up. After coach Paul Oßwald was committed to the round in 1958/59, Eintracht improved their performance and won the title in the Oberliga Süd. In the final round of the German football championship in 1959, the Frankfurt team won undefeated against 1. FC Köln , Werder Bremen and FK Pirmasens . With a goal difference of 26:11 goals they moved into the final. The opponents in the final were the local rivals from Offenbacher Kickers . In a dramatic game, Eintracht Frankfurt won 5-3 goals after extra time. Hans Weilbächer did his job as a tireless driver and endurance runner in the middle field on the left outer runner position. Often his paths crossed with Hermann Nuber . Since Weilbächer belonged to the combative faction in the Eintracht team, the technicians around Pfaff and Sztani were in the majority, he had the tactical task of neutralizing the athlete and never giving up fighter Nuber if possible. The 1959/60 European Cup games in the national championship competition were the highlight of Hans Weilbächer 's athletic career. On November 4, 1959, the European games for Eintracht began. Opponent was the Swiss champion Young Boys Bern , who was trained by the German old international Albert Sing and had only failed in the semifinals at Stade de Reims last year . With a transformed free kick in the fourth minute of the game, Weilbächer scored the Eintracht lead and at the same time Frankfurt's first goal in the European Cup. Paul Oßwald's protégés prevailed against Bern, the Wiener Sport-Club and the Glasgow Rangers and stood in the final on May 18, 1960 in Glasgow against the defending champion Real Madrid . Hans Weilbächer fell to the task of shadowing the playmaker of the Madrile, Alfredo Di Stéfano . Because of the running and playful activity of the "blond arrow", which was completely beyond the scope of the time, to constantly operate from one's own penalty area into the opponent’s penalty area, Weilbächer was unable to fully meet this requirement. Europe's footballers of 1957 and 1959 set the pace of the game and, together with four-time goalscorer Ferenc Puskás, led Real Madrid to a sovereign 7-3 win. In 1961 and 1962, the Frankfurters again made it to the finals with Weilbächer as runner-up in the south. The left runner completed a total of 17 games in four finals. On January 27, 1963, he played his last league game for Eintracht Frankfurt in the 0-1 home defeat against Hessen Kassel . From 1953 to 1963 he brought it to 241 games and 48 goals in the Oberliga Süd. In the new Bundesliga he was under contract until 1965, but he was no longer able to play. He ended his career at Eintracht Frankfurt in 1965 after 570 games in 13 years.

National team, 1953–1958

The 20-year-old half-forward received his first international appointment for the amateur international match between Germany and France in Wuppertal on June 13, 1953. The second appearance took place in 1954. For the international match against Ireland held on May 28 in Hamburg on May 28, national coach Sepp called Herberger transferred Frankfurt to the German national soccer team . As a half right, he made his debut in a 2-1 victory on the side of 31-year-old Robert Schlienz from VfB Stuttgart . In 1957 and 1958, the national coach tested the Frankfurter on his home position of the left outer runner in two games of the B national team. However , he was not accepted into the squad for the 1958 World Cup in Sweden. Horst Szymaniak , the man from Erkenschwick, held this position for years with international class.

Specialty

The Eintracht players still alive from 1959/60 still meet regularly today, four times a year. For the final of the Champions League 2002 between Real Madrid and Bayer 04 Leverkusen in Hampden Park in Glasgow, the members of both final teams from 1960 were invited to Glasgow by UEFA . Two days of meeting at the place where they made sports history.

After the career

Hans Weilbächer, who lives in Schwalbach am Taunus near Frankfurt, looked after amateur teams in Oberursel and Langen after his career and then concentrated on his job as a calculator at Hoechst AG, where he was employed for four decades.

swell

• Jürgen Bitter : Germany's national soccer player: the lexicon . SVB Sportverlag, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-328-00749-0 .
• History of the Oberliga Süd, Klartext Verlag, 1993, ISBN 3-88474-055-5 .
• Germany's great soccer teams; Part 7: Eintracht Frankfurt, AGON, 1995, ISBN 3-928562-53-3 .
• Jörg Heinisch: The game of the century: Eintracht Frankfurt and Real Madrid in the European Cup of Champions 1960. Agon-Sportverlag, Kassel 2004, ISBN 3-89784-248-3 .