Manfred Berz

Manfred Berz (born April 13, 1938 ) is a former German soccer player who played 79 competitive games for FC Schalke 04 from 1958 to 1965 in the Oberliga West or Bundesliga and scored 33 goals.

career

Schalke, until 1965

The technically outstanding half-striker of VfL Resse 08's A youth team, Manfred Berz, was appointed to the German youth national team by the DFB in 1956 . He took part in the UEFA youth tournament in Hungary with the DFB-Elf . In the three group matches against Hungary (0-0), Bulgaria (1-0) and England (1-2) at the end of March 1956, the technician acted in the German attack on the half-left. Teammates in the attack were Werner Olk and Reinhold Wischnowsky . For the round of 1958/59, the talented offensive player from the Gelsenkirchen district of Resse signed a contract with the western upper division Schalke 04, which had just won its seventh German championship title in May .

Under the Austrian coach Eduard Frühwirth he made his debut in the league on February 22, 1959 at the home game against Borussia Dortmund. Together with Willi Koslowski , Hans Nowak , Willi Soya and Bernhard Klodt, he formed the attack of the “Royal Blues”. However, Schalke could not match the performance from the championship year in any form and even finished the round with a negative point account of 27:33 points in a disappointing eleventh place. Frühwirth left and with Nandor Lengyel a new coach came to the Glückauf-Kampfbahn. For the young player Berz, things didn't get any better in his second round at Schalke. After two seasons, he had six appearances and two goals to show, and there could be no talk of approaching the regular cast.

When in the summer of 1960 from Aschaffenburg with stopper Egon Horst and from Günnigfeld the outside runner Willi Schulz strengthened the Schalke squad, the technician Manfred Berz suddenly played his way into the starting eleven of the “Knappen”. At the end of the round in 1960/61, Schalke finished third and Berz had scored 13 goals in 21 appearances. Together with Waldemar Gerhardt , he led the Schalke scorer list. Berz contributed to the runner-up in the west in the 1961/62 round with fourteen missions and nine goals. In the final round of the German championship he was not used in the summer of 1962. His last league game he completed on April 10, 1963 in the 0-1 defeat at TSV Marl-Hüls when he had to deal with their talented side runner Heinz van Haaren in midfield . A total of 49 games with 25 goals were recorded for Berz from 1958 to 1963 in the Oberliga West.

He made his debut in the new Bundesliga in 1963/64 under coach Georg Gawliczek on August 31, 1963 in an away game against 1. FC Kaiserslautern. Schalke won on the Betzenberg against the “Red Devils” trained by ex-Schalke Günter Brocker with 3-2 goals and Berz had distinguished himself as a two-time goalscorer. In the Bundesliga’s debut year, he played 24 games and scored eight goals. He thus belonged to the regular cast, which was excellently occupied with Reinhard Libuda , Waldemar Gerhardt, Willi Koslowski, Klaus Matischak and Günter Herrmann on the offensive. When Fritz Langner, a proven "tough coach", swept the sporting scepter in 1964/65, the high-class technician lost his interest and he only made six more Bundesliga appearances. Schalke finished the round as bottom of the table and Berz said goodbye to the area and signed a contract with the southern regional league club 1. FC Schweinfurt 05 for the 1965/66 round.

Regional league football, 1965 to 1968

With the 15th of the round in 1964/65, Berz surprisingly celebrated the championship in the Regionalliga Süd in 1966, ahead of the toughest competitor for the title, Kickers Offenbach. In only one of the 34 league games, the man from Schalke was not on the ball for Schweinfurt and scored twelve goals as a half-forward. Coach Gunther Baumann had led the team to this success and the other offensive players Kurt Dachlauer , Günter Masurek , Manfred Rühr and Rolf Schweighöfer were guarantors for the goals for entry into the Bundesliga promotion round. There, Berz met the opposing goal twice in three games. Against Rot-Weiss Essen, FC St. Pauli and 1. FC Saarbrücken, Lower Franconia could not prevail and ended up in fourth place in the group.

Saarbrücken had made contact with Berz and he played from the 1966/67 round in the Saarland capital at 1. FC Saarbrücken in the Southwest regional soccer league. He formed the right wing with right wing Walter Gawletta and won the runner-up in the southwest with 1. FC behind Borussia Neunkirchen . He had scored six goals in 23 games, with center forward Emil Poklitar topping the internal goalscorer list with 19 goals. In the Bundesliga promotion round he was in group two against the competition Alemannia Aachen, Kickers Offenbach, Göttingen 05 and Tennis Borussia Berlin in all eight games for the Southwest runner-up. Despite the other players Manfred Gärtner , Anton Burghardt , Harald Diener , Wolfgang Seel , Horst Schauß and Karl-Heinz Vogt , the promotion could not be realized. Saarbrücken celebrated successes with a 4: 3 in Offenbach and a 3: 0 home win on June 21, 1967 against newly promoted Alemannia Aachen, but three minus points against Tennis Borussia Berlin and their two against Göttingen were simply too much. In the second year, 1967/68: 22 games - ten goals, he finished fifth in the Southwest League with Saarbrücken and ended his higher-class career in the summer of 1968. A total of 78 games with 28 goals are noted for him in the regional leagues South and Southwest.

literature

• Harald Landefeld, Achim Nöllenheidt (ed.): Helmut, tell me dat Tor ... New stories and portraits from the Oberliga West 1947–1963. Klartext, Essen 1993, ISBN 3-88474-043-1 .
• Hardy Grüne , Lorenz Knieriem: Encyclopedia of German League Football. Volume 8: Player Lexicon 1890–1963. AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 2006, ISBN 3-89784-148-7 .
• 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 .