Harald Karger

Harald Karger (born October 14, 1956 in Weilburg ), known as Skull-Harry , is a former German soccer player who played 28 Bundesliga games for Eintracht Frankfurt between 1979 and 1983 .

Player career

Karger had already switched from his home club TuS Waldhausen to FC Burgsolms as an A-youth , where, after another year in the A-youth, he had played in the first team of the national division for five years. On the recommendation of his then coach Nikolaus Semlitsch , he switched to Bundesliga club Eintracht Frankfurt as a professional in 1979 . Semlitsch had once worked for Kickers Offenbach in the Bundesliga, Eintracht's arch rivals.

Karger was initially particularly successful as a track and field athlete, he finished in 1977 at the Hessian championships with 10.7 seconds in sixth place in the 100-meter sprint.

In his first season as a professional footballer, he was able to score 9 goals in 23 games. Karger also scored 6 goals for Eintracht in the UEFA Cup , which the Hessians won in the end, including the first leg of the final against Borussia Mönchengladbach .

Already celebrated as a rising Bundesliga star by storm, Karger suffered a cruciate ligament rupture in his left knee in that game after he said he stepped into a hole in the grass and had to end his career in 1983 after only 28 Bundesliga games.

Karger also became popular under the nickname Skull Harry , which he was given by tabloid journalists after he had scored several of his goals with headers. The nickname, however, gave the wrong impression that Karger was a so-called "header specialist" like Horst Hrubesch, who was active at the same time . Karger's real strengths, however, were speed and athleticism.

Stations

• TuS Waldhausen (until 1972)
• FC Burgsolms (1972 to 1979)
• Eintracht Frankfurt (1979 to 1983)

successes

• 1980 UEFA Cup winner
• DFB Cup winner 1981
• best Bundesliga placement: 5th (1981)

After the active career

After initial engagements with various amateur clubs, Karger was one of 20 youth coaches at the Frankfurt Eintracht football school until summer 2009, where he worked with former Eintracht greats such as Charly Körbel , Ralf Weber and Norbert Nachtweih . After that he was u. a. Coach of the 1st team of the group league club TuRa Niederhöchstadt (group league Wiesbaden). Since September 2010, Harald Karger has been the coach of the regional upper division Limburg 07 (Wiesbaden district). He runs the Harald Karger Football Academy in Weilburg, which promotes talented youth footballers between the ages of 6 and 11. He lives in the Weilburg district of Kubach .