Max Rieger (soccer player)
Max Rieger (born March 5, 1904 in Freiburg im Breisgau , † March 5, 1989 in Gengenbach ) was a German football goalkeeper .
He played for Freiburg FC from 1923 to 1926. From 1927 to 1933 he worked for TuS Prien and FC 08 Villingen . He was temporarily "B" or substitute goalkeeper for the German national team.
Career
Early career at FFC
Rieger joined the youth department of the FFC early on. This had eleven teams (each with its own trainer) from whose ranks the five adult teams were constantly supplied with talented youngsters. The extensive youth work contributed to the fact that the first team achieved a high level of awareness both within Germany and in other European countries.
After several auditions with the first team in the spring, Rieger celebrated his official debut in a 2-0 win against Phoenix Karlsruhe in front of 3,000 spectators on November 4, 1923 .
International friendlies
Although Rieger and his teammates (including striker Ernst Bantle ) could not repeat winning the German championship of 1907, the years 1924 to 1926 brought their successes, especially against international opponents. At that time, the FFC played in the top football class, the district league (Württemberg - Baden; a comprehensive league was only introduced in 1945, the Bundesliga in 1963). As runner-up in 1924 and '25, the Freiburg team narrowly missed qualifying for the southern German and German championships twice.
Nevertheless, a number of victories were achieved against well-known foreign clubs in those years, including against AS Strasbourg, FC Lucerne, FC Barcelona, 1. FC Basel, Blue Stars Zurich, Urania Geneva and Olympique de Paris. Against the long-time Hungarian champions MTK Budapest they played a 3-3 draw. For the 3: 4 defeat against Viktoria Zizkov Prague, the Freiburger Zeitung blamed not only the unsuccessful storm but also the absence of Rieger.
The friendly atmosphere at these encounters, organized by football pioneer Walther Bensemann , contributed a lot to the reconciliation between peoples strived for during the Weimar Republic, especially when playing against clubs from England and France. Bensemann himself described the game AS Strasbourg: FFC on November 16, 1924 - the first post-war game by a German team on French soil - as the "historic turning point in Strasbourg". The game took place by agreement of both clubs despite the refusal of approval by the DFB.
Bensemann, who never spared criticism when it came to play, did not spare Rieger either, as was the case with the 2-4 defeat against Slavia Prague; the Freiburg defense seemed to him “… too nervous and hasty… Rieger also seems to be fraught with nerves; his achievements are unequal, now good, now bad; maybe the insecure game of the backs in the second half influenced him ... "
Even in league, cup and friendly matches against renowned German clubs such as Stuttgarter Kickers, Sportclub '99 Cologne, Phoenix Karlsruhe (later KSC), Berlin's FC Preussen and Bayern Munich, the Freiburg team was able to record (sometimes high) victories during this time such as the 7: 3 against Eintracht Frankfurt or the 7: 1 against VFB Stuttgart.
On May 18, 1924, the FFC achieved one of the first victories of a German team against representatives of English professional football, the cup finalists West Ham United from London, who suffered the first defeat of their European tour with a clear 2: 5 (only the French national team could West Ham later narrowly defeated).
This success was all the more sensational as the Londoners had scored an overall goal difference of 16: 1 in victories in Cologne, Mönchengladbach, Mannheim and Frankfurt. In 1966, Rieger himself published a subsequent match report on the “Engländerspiel” (now available on the FFC's homepage), supplemented by an amusing look behind the scenes of the game preparation, written by game committee member Otto Stunz. The Freiburger Zeitung called the victory "... sensational news that runs through today at home and abroad ..." and praised above all the Freiburg storm (Hotze, Bantle and Würz) and Rieger, who held the "... Freiburg bulwark excellently" at the center caught and fisted with real splendor. "
National team
In 1924/25 Rieger was temporarily a substitute goalkeeper for the national team, but was not used. The undisputed number one in the German goal during the twenties, Heiner Stuhlfauth , was between 1924 and 1926 because of disputes between 1. FC Nürnberg and SpVgg. Fürth (who together made up the lion's share of the national team) temporarily indispensable. This fact, as well as the DFB's willingness to experiment at the time, helped a number of other goalkeepers to become national team members, including Karl Zolper , Georg Ertl and Werner Kuhnt , and Rieger as a substitute.
In addition to positional play, Rieger's strengths were primarily skill and security in defending his fist. He also possessed the ability to bring his tall stature to full advantage in spectacular pike jumps and thereby avert goals that were already believed to be safe at the last moment. As a result, he was feared by the opponent even with penalties. Against the reigning German champions 1. FC Nürnberg, Rieger impressed his counterpart, national goalkeeper Stuhlfauth, with a series of safe parades in the heavily beleaguered Freiburg Gate on June 24, 1925. After Stuhlfauth had to admit defeat by Bantle's penalty, Rieger saved two penalties in return and was then celebrated by the Nürnbergers as “the best man on the pitch” despite the Freiburg 1-2 defeat. The FFC retaliated a year later in the DFB Cup game against the renewed German champions with a 1-0 win, which the Freiburger Zeitung attributed primarily to the final trio Röhler - Klay - Rieger.
After more than 100 games, Rieger played his last documented game for the FFC on November 29, 1926, in a 3-0 draw against VFB Stuttgart.
FC 08 Villingen
In 1926/27 Rieger was a player trainer at TuS Prien (Chiemsee). In autumn 1927 he moved to Villingen-Schwenningen for professional reasons. In October he made his first game there for FC 08 Villingen . In the following years he made headlines at the club, which is now also playing in the district league (e.g. "Rieger beats Lörrach", "undoubtedly the best league keeper in Baden"). On July 11, 1929, Rieger married his fiancée Ida, b. Burger; In 1937 daughter Dorothea was born.
In 1933 Rieger ended his active career. He remained a member of the FFC throughout his life and was appointed to the club's honorary council in the 1960s .
Individual evidence
- ^ Freiburger Zeitung (FZ), Sportblatt, November 5, 1923
- ↑ 7: 1, FZ of December 28, 1925
- ↑ 6: 4, FZ from August 31, 1925
- ↑ 6: 1, FZ from June 30, 1924
- ↑ 7: 3, FZ of March 31, 1924
- ↑ 4: 2, FZ from April 21, 1924
- ↑ 1: 4 in the Stade Bergeyre , FZ from September 21, 1925
- ↑ FZ of June 29, 1925
- ↑ FZ of April 13, 1924
- ↑ FZ of 26 M19 1924, 29 September 1924, 17 November 1924 and 21 September 1925
- ↑ Der Kicker , November 18, 1924
- ↑ 'FFC Vereinszeitung', issue 9, September 1924
- ^ FZ, Sportblatt, 1923-26
- ↑ http://www.eintracht-archiv.de/1924/1925-02-08st.html#sb
- ↑ FZ of September 8, 1924
- ↑ FZ of May 26, 1924
- ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from May 8, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ FZ from May 19, 1924
- ↑ The history of the national team, pp. 54–56, Dietrich Schulze-Marmeling, 2004
- ^ FC of June 2, 1925
- ↑ FZ of March 21, 1926
- ^ Sport-Rundschau, April 3, 1928
- ↑ Baden Observer, September 10, 1928
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Rieger, Max |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German soccer goalkeeper |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 5, 1904 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Freiburg in Breisgau |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 5, 1989 |
| Place of death | Gengenbach |