Karl Berger (soccer player)

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Karl Berger
Personnel
birthday June 13, 1951
place of birth Stuttgart ,  Germany
position Storm
Juniors
Years station
VfB Stuttgart
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
1969-1971 VfB Stuttgart Am.
1971-1973 VfB Stuttgart 29 ( 04)
1973-1978 Karlsruher SC 150 (44)
08 / 1978-10 / 1978 SC Fortuna Cologne 5 ( 00)
10 / 1978-1982 KFC Winterslag
1982-1983 Thor Waterschei
1983-1984 FC Schaffhausen
Stations as a trainer
Years station
1983-1986 FC Schaffhausen
1986-1987 FC Baden
1 Only league games are given.

Karl "Charly" Berger (born June 13, 1951 in Stuttgart ) is a former German soccer player. The striker played between 1971 and 1978 for VfB Stuttgart , Karlsruher SC and SC Fortuna Köln in the 1st and 2nd Bundesliga , then he qualified for the first Belgian league with KFC Winterslag and Thor Waterschei the European Cup. Berger ended his footballing career as a player-coach and coach in Switzerland.

Youth and first professional years at VfB Stuttgart

Berger was discovered in Fellbach as a D youth player as a talent and promoted for the youth department of VfB Stuttgart. Under coach Willi Richter he went through the youth teams of VfB in the year from which other professional players such as Karl-Heinz Handschuh , Wolfgang Frank and Horst Köppel emerged . Berger was also appointed to the youth national team, where he was in a team with Paul Breitner , Rolf Rüssmann and Uli Hoeneß and was trained by Udo Lattek .

After two years in the amateur team of VfB, Berger was part of the Bundesliga team under coach Branko Zebec for the first time in 1970 and he was used for the first time in the first game of the 1971/72 season . However, he could not play in the regular formation in this and the following season and only came to 13 or 16 missions and two goals each.

Karlsruher SC (1973–1978)

In the summer of 1973 Berger moved to Karlsruher SC, who played second class in 1973/74 in the last year of the Regionalliga Süd . As a transfer, the KSC had to put 150,000 marks on the table, a high sum for the time - the other six new signings of the sports club this season had cost just as much together. Berger was initially unable to meet the correspondingly high expectations, and was considered by some to be a bad purchase. Nevertheless, the center forward scored 11 goals in 33 games in the first year and was the top goalscorer of the Baden team, which was significantly younger this year and finished this season with an 8th place.

Together with Berger, Carl-Heinz Rühl came to Karlsruhe as a coach in 1973 , and his work bore fruit in the 1974/75 second division season . At this season, Bernd Hoffmann, a new center forward, moved to the Wildpark, who was top scorer in the 2nd League South with 25 goals and thus made a decisive contribution to the championship and thus to the KSC's promotion to the Bundesliga. Berger was positioned on the right wing in the three-man storm and, together with Roland Vogel , formed the Karlsruhe team's "wing tongs"; Berger scored 10 goals, Vogel 6 goals in the promotion season. The rise was accompanied by great euphoria in the environment, as it came at an unexpected time and ended a long, seven-year period of second class.

In the first Bundesliga season, the KSC had a decent start to the season, after a 2-0 win in Düsseldorf on matchday 8, the sports club even took fifth place, but the sometimes injury-related jamming of striker Hoffmann, who only scored two goals in 13 appearances in the preliminary round , made itself felt in the lack of goal haulage, and they did not win another game in 1975. In the current round, another striker, Ove Flindt-Bjerg from Denmark , was committed, but his goal rate matched that of his teammates. In 30 missions, Charly Berger only scored a "double pack" in the home game against Duisburg and once in Bochum; internal "top scorer" was midfielder Martin Kübler with only 6 goals. Nevertheless, it was enough for the Karlsruher SC to stay up, unlike in the second year. It is true that Rühl had more luck with the commitment of Norbert Janzon this season in the search for strikers than in the previous year - Janzon scored 16 goals - and Berger was also able to improve his yield compared to the previous season to 6 goals in 24 games. A personal highlight for Berger was the game on December 4, 1976, in which he scored three goals in the "game of his life" in the sensational 4-0 victory against the reigning German champions Borussia Mönchengladbach ; two days after the birth of his first daughter. However, with a disastrous final phase, the KSC gambled away the relegation it had already believed to be safe and had to go to the 2nd Bundesliga.

In contrast to many other pillars of the team, Berger remained loyal to the club even after relegation. With the new coach Bernd Hoss and a new center forward Emanuel Günther , who presented himself in the best mood , the KSC had a very successful start to the new season 1977/78 : After the 12th matchday they were the leaders of the league. To everyone's surprise, Hoss was dismissed by the club's management exactly at this point and replaced by Rolf Schafstall . From this point on, performance went downhill and the desired immediate rise was clearly missed with 7th place. Behind Günther, Berger was second in the internal goalscorer list with 14 goals.

Fortuna Cologne, KFC Winterslag, Thor Waterschei (1978–1983)

Berger, dissatisfied with the sporting development, left the Karlsruher SC and switched to SC Fortuna Köln . Due to problems within the club, he left the club after only three months in October 1978 and went to KFC Winterslag (now KRC Genk ) in Belgium. There he built on earlier successes and immediately played his way into the regular formation. In 1981 he reached 5th place with the club, qualifying for the UEFA Cup. In 1982 he switched to the Belgian league competitor and cup winner Thor Waterschei (now also KRC Genk), so that Berger followed up with other games in the European Cup Winners' Cup ; they prevailed there in the quarter-finals by a 0-2 and 3-0 afterwards against Paris Saint-Germain , but had to admit defeat in the semifinals against the later cup winners FC Aberdeen .

In total, Berger completed 123 league games for the two Belgian first division clubs, in which he scored 39 goals. He was five times in the UEFA Cup for Winterslag and six times in the European Cup Winners' Cup for Waterschei.

Career end in Switzerland

Karl Berger ended his footballing career as a player- coach at the Swiss C-league club FC Schaffhausen , with whom he was promoted to the National League B straight away. He then worked as a coach for FC Baden .

Through contacts made during his training as a trainer in Baden, Berger began to work on his further professional career and eventually went into business for himself in the IT sector. Today he works as an account manager in sales for a large computer service provider and lives in Überlingen am Ried , a district of Singen (Hohentwiel) .

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personal data
SURNAME Berger, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Berger, Charly (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH June 13, 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH Stuttgart