Hubert Birkenmeier

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Hubert Birkenmeier (born May 24, 1949 ) is a former German soccer goalkeeper who played 50 games for Tennis Borussia Berlin from 1974 to 1977 in the Bundesliga and twice the US championship of North with Cosmos New York in 1980 and 1982 American Soccer League (NASL). He was in goal for the German amateur national team in 1971.

career

Germany, until 1979

The 21-year-old amateur goalkeeper Hubert Birkenmeier came in 1970 from Hartheim, just under 20 km southwest of Freiburg, as a new addition to Freiburg FC in the Regionalliga Süd . Under coach Hans Pilz he made his debut on August 15, 1970 in the 1: 2 defeat at 1860 Munich behind the defense with Bernd Schneider , Günter Streich , Werner Anzill and Hubert Windsperger in the regional league. The FFC finished ninth and Birkenmeier had been in the goal of the FFC in 22 games. Through his achievements, he had also attracted national attention and the responsible DFB coach Jupp Derwall appointed him to the squad of the amateur soccer team in April 1971 . Derwall prepared his national team candidates on April 21, 25 and 28, 1971 for the rhythm of the Olympic football tournament with three international matches against France, Tunisia and Spain. In the second international match, on April 25 in Tunis, the Freiburg player came on for Hans-Peter Schauber in goal. When new people came in the second year in Freiburg, 1971/72 , with coach Hans Wendtland and Stopper Blagomir Krivokuca , the Breisgauer improved to sixth place. Birkenmeier played 35 of 36 league games in this round, the two successes against 1. FC Nürnberg were outstanding. In the preliminary round, Birkenmeier was able to keep his case clean on September 15, 1971 in a 2-0 away win against the "Club" attackers Karl-Heinz Mrosko , August Starek , Manfred Drexler and Franz Brungs and in the second half of the season he was also the guarantee of 3rd place : 1 home successes on February 27, 1972. For financial reasons, Birkenmeier accepted the offer of the President of Tennis Borussia Berlin, Hans Rosenthal , after 57 regional league appearances for Freiburg FC in the 1972/73 round and moved from the Black Forest to the Spree.

In the first season, 1972/73, he landed with the "Veilchen" in the Berlin championship round behind Blau-Weiß 90 Berlin and Wacker 04 Berlin in third place. In 31 of 32 round games, he had guarded the Borussia housing. In 1974, coach Georg Gawliczek won the championship with 63: 3 points and 103: 19 goals ahead of Wacker 04 and defending champion Blau-Weiß 90 and made it into the Bundesliga promotion round. Birkenmeier had played 26 games in the league. In the promotion round, Tennis Borussia sat down against FC Augsburg (with Helmut Haller , Herbert Höbusch ), Rot-Weiß Oberhausen ( Lothar Kobluhn , Ditmar Jakobs ), Borussia Neunkirchen ( Willi Ertz , Horst Schauß ) and FC St. Pauli ( Franz Gerber , Horst Wohlers ) and got promoted to the Bundesliga. In all eight games, Birkenmeier made a significant contribution to this with his goalkeeping performance. In the field, Reinhard Adler , Peter Eggert , Gino Ferrin , Jürgen Rumor , Norbert Siegmann , Hans Sprenger , Jürgen Schulz and Norbert Stolzenburg were among the active players in the rise.

For the relegation in the Bundesliga round 1974/75 , the ex-national player Karl-Heinz Schnellinger was signed , but as 17th Tennis Borussia immediately rose again to the 2nd division . Birkenmeier was used by coach Gawliczek in 33 games. With the new coach Helmuth Johannsen in 1975/76 as the second division champion, he immediately returned to the Bundesliga. The man from Freiburg played 35 of 38 league games and was one of the top performers in the Johannsen team along with Ditmar Jakobs , Norbert Siegmann and Norbert Stolzenburg (27 goals). The recognized football expert and expert for balanced team management - Birkenmeier describes him as a “super coach” - but moved to Switzerland after promotion and therefore Rudi Gutendorf was allowed to try his hand at Johannsen's successor in the Bundesliga . In the preliminary round, Birkenmeier was the undisputed number one at Tennis Borussia and was in goal in all 17 games. Among them were the 9-0 defeat at Bayern Munich with five goals from Gerd Müller on the fifth matchday and the following 3-1 home win eight days later against the leaders 1. FC Köln, who came with 10-0 points. Tennis Borussia ended the preliminary round with a 1: 3 defeat at 1. FC Kaiserslautern and was in 17th place with 10:24 points. Four days later - Wednesday, December 15, 1976 - the third main round of the DFB Cup took place. TeBe competed at 1. FC Köln and Horst Nussbaum played the libero role. The game was lost with 1: 5 goals for Berlin and Birkenmeier was put in front of Volkmar Groß , who was brought by Twente Enschede , in the second half of the season, but that did not change anything in the descent with 22:46 points - seven points were missing to the saving 15th place . Horst Nussbaum's appearance in the DFB Cup at 1. FC Köln did not help to consolidate the fragile relationship of trust between goalkeeper Birkenmeier and coach Gutendorf. Birkenmeier, disappointed by the downgrading, signed a new contract with his old club, Freiburger FC, for the 2nd Bundesliga for the 1977/78 round and thus returned to the Möslestadion .

When he was promoted he met coach Georg Gawliczek again and took 13th place in the table with his teammates Karl-Heinz Bente , Karl-Heinz Bührer , Karlheinz Mießmer and Karl-Heinz Schulz in 1978 and 1979. In all 76 second division games, the objective, reliable goalkeeper guarded the housing of the FFC team. The then President of Freiburg, Rolf Jankovsky - he had contacts to Franz Beckenbauer and Robert Schwan - transferred Hubert Birkenmeier to Cosmos New York in the summer of 1979 after a European tour of the Beckenbauer team for financial reasons.

USA, 1979 to 1984

As the successor to Shep Messing, Birkenmeier guarded the goal of Cosmos New York in 145 league games from 1979 to 1984 and another 32 in the finals. He celebrated the championship of the North American Soccer League in 1980 under coach Hennes Weisweiler and in 1982 under Julio Mazzei . In 1982 and 1984 he was part of the NASL All-Star Team. Apart from Franz Beckenbauer, outstanding team-mates were the Brazilian world championship captain from 1970 Carlos Alberto Torres , the Dutch vice world champions from 1974 and 1978 Johan Neeskens and Wim Rijsbergen , the Yugoslav international player Vladislav Bogićević and the Italian star striker Giorgio Chinaglia .

In 1982 Birkenmeier opened a sports shop in Hackensack / New Jersey , which he sold to his Iranian ex-Cosmos team-mate Andranik Eskandarian in 1985 . But he continued to work there afterwards.

literature

  • Werner Kirchhofer: 100 years of FFC 1897–1997. Edited by the Freiburg football club. 1997.
  • Hardy Greens : Encyclopedia of German League Football. Volume 1: From the Crown Prince to the Bundesliga. 1890 to 1963. German championship, Gauliga, Oberliga. Numbers, pictures, stories. AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 1996, ISBN 3-928562-85-1 .
  • Ulrich Homann (Hrsg.): Hellfire on Ascension. The history of the promotion rounds to the Bundesliga 1963–1974. Klartext, Essen 1990, ISBN 3-88474-346-5 .
  • Matthias Weinrich: Encyclopedia of German League Football. Volume 3: 35 years of the Bundesliga. Part 1. The founding years 1963–1975. Stories, pictures, constellations, tables. AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 1998, ISBN 3-89784-132-0 .
  • Matthias Weinrich: 25 years 2nd division. The second division almanac. All players. All clubs. All results. AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 2000, ISBN 3-89784-145-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Cosmos should shine again" in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of March 28, 2011, accessed on April 15, 2011
personal data
SURNAME Birkenmeier, Hubert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH May 24, 1949