Herbert Schäfer (soccer player)

Herbert Schäfer (born August 16, 1927 in Siegen ; † May 6, 1991 ibid) was a German football player and coach . The player, who can be used as a half-forward and middle runner, won the German amateur championship with his club Sportfreunde Siegen in 1955 , took part with the DFB amateurs in the Summer Olympics in Helsinki in 1952 and in Melbourne in 1956 and was coached by national coach Sepp Herberger once on November 20, 1957 Used in the German national team in the international match against Sweden in Hamburg.

career

Association until 1960

Herbert Schäfer spent his entire playing career with his home club Sportfreunde Siegen. He belonged to the Sportfreunde since 1938. He was a youth player until the collapse of the game operations in World War II , then he moved up to the 1st team after football resumed. He distinguished himself from an early age through brilliant ball handling and high game intelligence. He was the outstanding player personality in the Siegener game in the 1950s. After the rise in the 1946/47 round in the Landesliga Westfalen, he belonged to this league with his sports friends including the 1955/56 season. Between 1953 and 1956, Schäfer and his club celebrated the championship in the group south four times in a row. The season 1954/55 was the climax. After the success in the playoff for group victory against SuS Menden 09, Schäfer and his teammates finished third behind Eintracht Gelsenkirchen and VfB Bielefeld in the games for the Westphalia Championship. Since Gelsenkirchen and Bielefeld applied for a license for the 2nd League West, Siegen represented Westphalia at the games for the German amateur championship. Under the leadership of coach Hans “Schäng” Paffrath and captain Herbert Schäfer, the sports fans won the group phase against SV Bergisch Gladbach, Sterkrade 06/07 and 1. FC Neukölln and advanced to the semi-finals against Heider SV . A hard-fought 3-1 victory was won against the team of his later national team colleague among the DFB amateurs, Willi Gerdau , and thus moved into the final. In front of 15,000 spectators in Wetzlar, the final became a clear matter for the winning countries. The final opponent SpVgg Bad Homburg was confidently beaten 5-0 goals and the Carl-Riegel trophy was received for the German amateur champion in 1955. The coverage turned over in their hymns of praise, and an expert like Karl-Heinz Heimann wrote after the 5-0 triumph:

"What Fritz Walter is to 1. FC Kaiserslautern, Herbert Schäfer is to Sportfreunde Siegen."

Schäfer's clever direction was the icing on the cake of this endgame.

With the association selection from Westphalia in 1955, the Siegener was also drawn into the final of the regional cup , but lost there against the strong Bavarians with Meßmann, Reitgaßl, Semmelmann and Zeitler.

In the round of 1955/56 the national league was able to defend the title with a 13 point lead. In the Westphalia championship, however, Schäfer and colleagues had to be content with the runner-up behind SC Dortmund 95 and thus could not defend their title in the competition for the German amateur championship, where VfB Speldorf finally represented the colors of the WFV.

From the 1956/57 season Siegen wore its association games in the newly introduced Association League Westphalia Group Southwest. On June 16, 1957, Herbert Schäfer and his colleagues from the Westphalian selection lost the final in the state cup in Hanover against Lower Saxony. The Siegen institution celebrated its fifth championship title in the 1958/59 round alongside center forward Albert Kühn and the new offensive hope Gerhard Neuser , but again lost the final of the Westphalia Championship against SpVgg Beckum. After winning the runner-up in 1959/60 behind the champion and promoted to the 2nd League West, SSV Hagen, the almost 33-year-old Herbert Schäfer ended his playing career in the Olympic summer of 1960 and seamlessly took over the coaching position for his sports friends in 1960/61 .

Although the filigree technician and ingenious game designer, the outstanding Siegen footballer of his generation, had several offers from the contract players' camp of the football top leagues - including from 1. FC Köln , FC Schalke 04 and Karlsruher SC - in the course of his long career , he stayed until the end of his career as an amateur in Siegen. Only Schäfer's ties to his homeland and loyalty to the club prevented a much more glamorous career in the senior national team than his calling in 1957 statistically documented.

Selection appointments, 1951 to 1960

In February 1951, national coach Sepp Herberger was commissioned to build a German team for the soccer tournament of the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. During the screening, the games for the national cup and the German amateur championship in 1951 and 1952 were the primary criteria for the selection of the team for the national coach and the association coaches working for him. Herbert Schäfer made it to the semi-finals with Westphalia in the 1951 regional cup competition, but was eliminated in the preliminary round in 1952 and was not represented at all with victories in the amateur championship. At the last moment, in June 1952, he jumped on the Olympic train. In the third amateur international game in DFB history, on June 8, 1952 in Munich against Austria , he was used by Herberger. In the 2-0 victory he formed the runner row with Kurt Sommerlatt and Alfred Post and was so convincing that he was included in the final Olympic squad.

Shortly before the flight from Hamburg to Helsinki, on July 17th, the amateur national team played a test match against the Swiss B-Elf on July 6th in Kiel, which was lost with 2: 3 goals. The Olympic tournament began for the DFB-Elf on July 20 with the game in Turku against Egypt, which had defeated Chile with 5: 4 goals in the qualification. National trainer Sepp Herberger was the man responsible for putting together the Olympic squad and personally supervised the selection during the tournament. Tactically, he decided to give the shepherd, who was nominally on the half-left, the task of the middle runner and at the same time let the stopper Herbert Jäger act as a cleaner in the defense. The tactic worked, Germany won the opening game with goals from Karl Klug and Willi Schröder (2) with 3-1 goals. Four days later, the German team met Brazil in Helsinki, which had won the qualifying game with 5-1 goals against the Netherlands and was then traded as an insider tip by the local experts. The Herberger protégés prevailed on July 24th in a dramatic encounter with 4-2 goals in extra time against the Brazilian ball artists. Friedebert Becker explained about the game:

“So we can storm into the final! Why the German amateurs triumphed over the insider tip Brazil - The victory palm belonged to the master stopper Schäfer, the self-defeating goalkeeper Schönbeck, the two-time goalscorer Schröder and the cold-blooded outrunner Post. […] We rate the great performance of Siegen center runner Schäfer all the more highly. We thought back to the 2-0 win over Austria in Munich, when Schäfer's clever, superior game caught the eye and made him join the Helsinki expedition at the last second. "

Even after the semi-final game against Yugoslavia, which was lost 1: 3 goals, the performance of the man from the Siegerland was particularly honored:

“Schäfer confirmed the brilliant certificate that the kicker gave him against Brazil. As an advanced middle runner, he not only covered vukas successfully, he also showed his talent in the long-range pass. He and Jäger were our defensive rocks. Hunters and shepherds have recommended themselves for the 'big' national team. "

The sporting test of strength with the Yugoslavian class players Vladimir Beara , Zlatko Čajkovski , Ivica Horvat , Vujadin Boškov , Bernard Vukas , Stjepan Bobek and Branko Zebec on July 29, 1952 in Helsinki was one of the highlights of Herbert Schäfer's career. Although the Siegener and his comrades also lost the game for third place with 0-2 goals against Sweden, participation in the 1952 Olympic tournament in Helsinki was a defining experience in Herbert Schäfer's life.

He had made such a positive impression on national coach Herberger that, despite his membership of an amateur club of the Landesliga Westfalen, he played in a B international match against Switzerland in Basel on November 9, 1952 after the Olympic Games and in the two A- International matches on December 21 and 28, 1952 against Yugoslavia and Spain belonged to the national team. On March 22, 1953, he completed his second B international match. During the final round of the German soccer championship in May 1953, national coach Herberger conducted test matches against Bolton Wanderers and two regional selections. In the four games, Gerhard Harpers , Schäfer and Fritz Semmelmann formed the runner row in the DFB selection .

Even in the 1953/54 world championship year, the amateur player belonged to the Herberger protégées despite his further membership in the sporting third division in the Landesliga Westfalen. He was on the line-up for the first World Cup qualifier against Norway on August 19, 1953 in Oslo, played a test match on September 2, 1953 in Konstanz with a DFB selection against a Swiss selection, and completed his third B on March 24, 1954 -Länderspiel, belonged again to the national team squad for the international match on April 25, 1954 in Basel against Switzerland and played on May 12, 1954 in Düsseldorf in a Germany selection against the British Home Army. At the beginning of May he was registered by the DFB for the 40-man squad to FIFA for the 1954 World Cup, alongside competitors Josef Posipal , Werner Liebrich and Gunther Baumann . National coach Herberger even invited Herbert Schäfer to the final course on May 24, 1954 at the Bavarian sports school in Munich-Grünwald, where he selected his final 22 players for the World Cup in Switzerland from a squad of 28 aspirants . However, Schäfer injured himself and had to forego the trip to Switzerland at short notice.

On September 25, 1955, Schäfer came to his fourth assignment in the B national team. The first time as a team captain, he led the amateur national team on May 19, 1956 at the international match against France in Freiburg. On November 7, 1956, the German Olympic team carried out the dress rehearsal in Duisburg with a test match against a German B selection. On November 16, the flight to Melbourne for the 1956 Olympic tournament started from Hamburg. On November 24, the DFB amateurs lost the game against the Soviet Union with 1: 2 goals. The team of DFB coach Georg Gawliczek made it very difficult for the clear Russian favorite around the stars Lev Jashin , Igor Netto and Eduard Strelzow . Schäfer was entrusted with the special task of guarding Sturmführer Strelzow and Rudolf Hoffmann acted as a cleaner. With the defeat, the Olympic tournament was over for the German team. His second Olympic Games also stand out in terms of experience value - the long flight with the stopovers, the atmosphere and the encounters at the Games - in Herbert Schäfer's career.

In July 1957 he was a member of the first World Cup course for the 1958 tournament in Sweden , was involved in two test matches of A and B selections in September and October and was finally on November 20, 1957 in Hamburg in the international match against Switzerland used by Herberger in the senior national team as a middle runner . Together with defensive colleagues Günter Sawitzki , Herbert Erhardt , Karl Schmidt , Karl Mai and Horst Szymaniak , Schäfer was able to keep the attack of the Swedes around playmaker Gunnar Gren and center forward Agne Simonsson in check in the German 1-0 victory.

After that he continued his international career only in the amateur national team. In 1959 the qualifying games for the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome were on the program. Team captain Herbert Schäfer, Willi Gerdau from Heide and Düsseldorf Fortune Matthias Mauritz were the corset bars in the personnel planning of the responsible DFB trainer Georg Gawliczek. On April 15 and May 27, 1959, Holland and England were each beaten 2-0 goals, and the amateur national team seemed to have found an outstanding scorer in Erwin Stein . Stein had scored the goals in both games. In the 1959/60 round, however, the scorer signed a contract with German champions Eintracht Frankfurt - he preferred the Oberliga Süd and the European Cup games to possible Olympic participation - and was therefore no longer available for the German-German qualifying games in September 1959 Available. In the final preparatory game of the DFB amateurs on August 5, 1959 in Augsburg against a combination of the contract players from Augsburg and Munich, the man from the sports fans on the left outside runner position together with the half-left Günter Herrmann as playmaker in the 3-2 success of the amateur -Selection. In the two successful games against the GDR national team on September 16 and 23, 1959, he stabilized the defense of the DFB-Elf as a middle runner. In the two games won 2-0 and 2-1 respectively, the lack of a goal-scorer of international stature was not yet clearly noticeable. The first Olympic qualification game against Finland on November 11, 1959 in the Leimbach Stadium at home , which was won 2-1 goals, concealed the attack's lack of penetration. The Polish national team then set the standards with their two 3-0 and 3-1 successes, the German amateur national team could not qualify for the 1960 Olympic Games, and Herbert Schäfer could not take part in his third Olympic football tournament.

In the spring of 1960, Hans Körfer describes the situation of the amateur national team at that time in a knowledgeable manner in the sports magazine under the heading Gawliczek needs corset poles in a storm like Schäfer and Gerdau :

“We have to get used to one thing: the amateurs will always change players much more than the best national team. [...] Players like Herbert Schäfer, who is “tied” to victories and has already played 21 amateur internationals, or Willi Gerdau, who in Heide rejected the contract even after promotion, are rare. We want to be happy that we have them, because they are the necessary support. "

Herbert Schäfer ended his international career with his 24th international appearance in the DFB amateur team on May 26, 1960 at the game in Saarbrücken against France. His winning club mate Gerhard Neuser completed his third international match in the amateur national team in a 6-2 win in front of 8,000 spectators against Olympian France. From 1955 to 1960, Schäfer had played all 17 international matches of the DFB amateurs. Between 1952 and 1960, the DFB played a total of 27 international matches with its amateur team. Regarding the ranking of the record players: from 1970 to 1972 the amateur national team already played 39 international matches. With the game in Saarbrücken, the DFB coach Georg Gawliczek also said goodbye to the amateur team, he took over FC Schalke 04 in the Bundesliga West for the 1960/61 round.

Honors

At the joint dinner after the amateur soccer match between Germany and France in Saarbrücken, DFB game committee chairman Hans Körfer presented the 25-time (24 amateur internationals, one A-internationals) national player Herbert Schäfer with the gold pin of the German Football Association and the DFB international plaque in gold. With the silver laurel leaf , he was later awarded the highest sports award by the Federal President. National coach Sepp Herberger, in agreement with the Presidium of the German Football Association, included the Siegener in the complete dozen deserving national football players who were awarded the football teacher diploma in 1960 after a few short courses but without studying at the sports university in Cologne.

Coach, 1960 to 1977

Herbert Schäfer, a few weeks after leaving the amateur national team, had hung up his football boots at the club, took over the coaching position at his home club Sportfreunde Siegen in the Westphalia Association for Round 1960/61. Right away he won the championship title with his protégés nine points ahead of the three tied chasers SC Dahlhausen, SG Wattenscheid 09 and TBV Mengede 08 and thus rose to the 2nd League West . In the last two years of the contract player era - 1961 to 1963 - he achieved with the Sportfreunde in the old second division against the competitors VfB Bottrop, TuS Duisburg, SpVgg Herten, STV Horst-Emscher, Rot-Weiss Essen, Arminia Bielefeld, Duisburger SV, SV Sodingen and VfL Bochum took eighth and fifth places and was thus included in the new regional football league West for the introduction of the Bundesliga in 1963/64 . Coach Schäfer started the season with his team on August 4, 1963 with a 1-1 home draw against Herten. The showpiece of the team was the indoor storm with Paul Haase , Albert Kühn (21 goals) and Gerhard Neuser. Siegen scored 69 goals in the season, the runner-up Wuppertaler SV scored 66 goals. Siegen descended from the 85 goals scored as 18th in the table, and the Wuppertal owed their defensive, which had allowed the fewest goals in the west with 36 goals conceded, the runner-up. With 21:17 points in the home games - including wins against the top teams Aachen (champions), third place in the table Düsseldorf, Marl-Hüls (4th), Viktoria Köln (5th) and Herne (6th) - would be the league for the shepherds - Eleven possible. But on the foreign places it was only enough to win a double point with 2-1 goals at Hamborn 07 and six draws. With a home draw on May 10, 1964 against Borussia Mönchengladbach Siegen said goodbye to the Regionalliga West. The ex-national player stayed two years in the Association League Westphalia with the Sportfreunde Trainer before he took over VfL Klafeld-Geisweid 08 in the regional league in the 1966/67 season and immediately led to promotion to the Association League, where he played three rounds with VfL spent.

For the 1971/72 season he returned to his home club and again made promotion to the West Regional Football League possible. 1972/73 he placed the climber with 39:29 points on the excellent seventh place in the table. Attacker Gerhard Scholtyschik scored 24 goals for the winning countries. In the last year of the old second-rate regional leagues , 1973/74, Schäfer and his sports friends landed in twelfth place, but had to accept integration into the amateur camp due to the introduction of the 2nd Bundesliga for the 1974/75 season. After finishing third in the 1974/75 season of the Association's league, he ended his coaching work for Sportfreunde and continued a season in the regional league with the Klafeld-Geisweid district club in 1976/77 before finally ending his coaching career.

Profession and death

The trained locksmith, who worked for many years as a property manager for the local savings bank, died on May 6, 1991 at the age of 63.

anecdote

In the first days of August 1952, 20,000 people were on the streets of Siegen, whom Schäfer escorted on his return from Helsinki in a joy train from the train station to his apartment. All traffic was paralyzed for almost half an hour. Hof writes:

“Two prominent Schalke players were submerged in the huge crowd - President Albert Wildtfang and team captain Hermann Eppenhoff . Even before the reception they quietly got rid of a worthy job and handed in a huge bouquet of flowers and a congratulatory address for FC Schalke 04 in Schäfer's apartment. On the recommendation of Fritz Szepan, the royal blues wanted to bring the Siegerland football idol to the Schalke market as a player. But that would almost have given the gentlemen a beating when the Siegen fans smelled a fuse when they appeared in the overcrowded club hall. In recognition of his personal physical distress, the Schalke boss spontaneously assured him that he would stay away from Schäfer. And when he even promised the sports fans a friendly game on the town square, the traditional Siegen-Schalke friendship was secured again. "

literature

• Markus Fiesseler: 100 years of football in North Rhine-Westphalia. A chronicle in tables (= Agon Sportverlag Statistics. 34). Agon-Sportverlag, Kassel 1997, ISBN 3-89609-128-8
• Karl-Heinz Hof: Siegerland sports stories. Verlag Vorländer GmbH & Co., Siegen 1997, ISBN 3-00-002216-3 .
• Raphael Keppel: Germany's international football matches. Documentation from 1908–1989. Sports and games publisher Edgar Hitzel, Hürth 1989, ISBN 3-9802172-4-8 .

Web links

• Herbert Schäfer in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Footnotes

1. ↑ Mark Fiesseler: 100 years football in North Rhine-Westphalia. Agon-Verlag, 1997, p. 243.
2. ↑ Mark Fiesseler: 100 years football in North Rhine-Westphalia. P. 271.
3. ↑ Jürgen Bitter : Germany's national soccer player: the lexicon . SVB Sportverlag, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-328-00749-0 , p. 415 .
4. ↑ Mark Fiesseler: 100 years football in North Rhine-Westphalia. P. 279.
5. ↑ ^{a b} Lorenz Knieriem, Hardy Grüne : Spiellexikon 1890 - 1963 . In: Encyclopedia of German League Football . tape 8 . AGON, Kassel 2006, ISBN 3-89784-148-7 , p. 329 .
6. ↑ The kicker . No. 30, July 28, 1952, pp. 3-5.
7. ↑ The kicker . No. 31, Aug. 4, 1952, pp. 9-16.
8. ↑ Sports magazine . No. 11 / A, March 7, 1960, pp. 12-13.
9. ↑ Sports magazine . No. 23 / A, May 30, 1960, pp. 12-13.