Rainer Ernst

Rainer Ernst
Rainer Ernst (second from right) in 1988 in the BFC jersey
Personnel
birthday	December 31, 1961
place of birth	Neustrelitz ,  GDR
size	186 cm
position	Attack, midfield
Juniors
Years	station
1968-1975	SG Dynamo Neustrelitz
1975-1979	BFC Dynamo
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1979-1990	BFC Dynamo	216 (91)
1990-1991	1. FC Kaiserslautern	18 0(2)
1991-1992	Girondins Bordeaux	24 0(7)
1992-1993	AS Cannes	7 0(0)
1993-1994	FC Zurich	17 0(2)
1994-1997	FSV Salmrohr	52 0(5)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1979-1980	GDR U-18	25 (10)
1980-1983	DDR U-21	22 (10)
1981-1990	GDR	56 (20)
1 Only league games are given.

Rainer Ernst (born December 31, 1961 in Neustrelitz ) is a former German soccer player. He played in the top soccer classes of the GDR , the DFB , Switzerland and the 2nd division of France . He was champion ten times with BFC Dynamo and once with 1. FC Kaiserslautern and won the GDR soccer cup twice . Ernst is a 56-time GDR national player.

Athletic career

youth

Ernst is the son of soccer player Joachim Ernst , who played in the GDR major league in the 1960s . Son Rainer was initially interested in athletics and, as a middle-distance runner, achieved the standard for admission to children's and youth sports schools. In cross-country skiing, he became the student master of the Neubrandenburg district . From 1968 he played soccer for the local SG Dynamo Neustrelitz , which delegated him to the top club of the Dynamo sports association , the Berlin FC Dynamo , at the age of 14 . There Ernst went through all the youth teams up to the juniors. With the junior team he was GDR champion in 1978 and 1979 . In these years he was also part of the squad of the GDR junior national team , for which he played 25 international matches and scored ten goals. At the last UEFA junior tournament , the unofficial European championship in this age group, the GDR hosted and qualified for the finals for the first time in five years. But as second in Group B, Ernst and his teammates such as Falko Götz , Uwe Bredow and Damian Halata could not qualify for the semi-finals in front of their home crowd.

DDR-Oberliga

Ernst made his debut in the GDR league at the age of 17. On the 25th matchday of the 1978/79 season, June 6, 1979, he was used in the game of Chemistry Bohlen - BFC (3:10) for 90 minutes in midfield and already scored his first two league goals. Also on the 26th and final day of the match he was a substitute for 33 minutes. So he belonged to the circle of players who won the first GDR championship title for the BFC. In the following nine championship titles in a row, he played an increasingly important part. Initially, Ernst did not get beyond the status of a substitute player in the following three seasons. It was not until the 1983/84 season that he gained a permanent footing in the league team. Now called up in attack, he played all 26 point games and was the most accurate scorer with 20 goals and at the same time top scorer in the league. A year later he was able to repeat this success with 24 hits. From the 1986/87 season Ernst was taken back to midfield, as Thomas Doll, a new striker, had come to the BFC. In addition to his championship titles, Ernst also won two trophies in the FDGB soccer cup in 1988 and 1989 . His last season for the BFC he played in 1989/90, in which he completed 24 league point games as a midfielder with five goals. In eleven years he had played 216 league games and scored 91 goals. He was also used in 31 European Cup games.

GDR national team

At the age of 19, Ernst was already part of the GDR national team . After playing eleven international matches with the U-21s , the BFC attacker came on November 11, 1981 in the World Cup qualifier GDR against Malta (5-1) as a substitute in the 79th minute for his first international match. From 1983 he was used regularly in the senior national team, but often not for a full 90 minutes. He played both in midfield and attack and scored 20 goals in his 56 international appearances. He scored his 20th goal in his last international match on May 13, 1990 in Rio de Janeiro against Brazil (3: 3). Ernst played 20 of the 31 qualifying games for the European and World Cup during his time as a national player. All qualifications were unsuccessful for the GDR, so that Ernst did not achieve any notable success as a national player. In his last four international matches, Ernst was captain of the national team. In addition to his A-internationals, he also played 22 internationals with ten goals for the junior national team. At the prestigious U-21 tournament in Toulon , Rainer Ernst was honored as the best player in the 1982 edition.

1. FC Kaiserslautern and abroad

After the political change in 1989 , Ernst took advantage of the new freedom to travel and signed a contract with Bundesliga club 1. FC Kaiserslautern for the 1990/91 season . He was used in the Bundesliga games from the start and scored his first Bundesliga goal in his first game HSV - 1. FCK (1: 3). He played a total of 18 Bundesliga games this season (16 of them in the starting line-up), was usually called up in midfield and scored two goals. At the end of the season Kaiserslautern won the championship and Ernst his 13th national title.

Then Ernst went abroad. In the season 1991/92 he played in the French second division for the ex-champions Girondins Bordeaux , completed 24 championship games with seven goals and helped the club to rise to the Première Division. Then Ernst moved to the French second division club AS Cannes . There he was only used in seven games. He also remained without a goal, so he accepted an offer from the Swiss NLA club FC Zurich during the current 1992/93 season . By the end of the 1993/94 season, Ernst played 17 national league games in which he scored two goals.

The 33-year-old then returned to Germany and played for the regional league team FSV Salmrohr in the third-class regional league from 1994 to 1997 . After the end of his career as a soccer player, Ernst returned to his hometown Neustrelitz and opened a sports shop and a tanning salon there.

successes

• 10 × GDR soccer champions with the BFC Dynamo
• once German soccer champion with 1. FC Kaiserslautern
• twice GDR cup winners with the BFC Dynamo
• 56 appointments to the GDR national team
• Promotion to the first division with Girondins Bordeaux in 1992

literature

• Munzinger Archive, International Sports Archive , 46/90.
• Andreas Baingo , Michael Hohlfeld: Soccer selection player of the GDR. The lexicon . Sportverlag Berlin , Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-328-00875-6 , page 42.
• Andreas Baingo , Michael Horn: The History of the GDR Oberliga. Verlag Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-89533-428-6 .
• Michael Horn, Gottfried Weise : The great lexicon of GDR football. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-89602-536-8 .
• Uwe Nuttelmann (Ed.): GDR Oberliga. 1962-1991. Self-published, Jade 2007, ISBN 978-3-930814-33-6 .
• Hanns Leske : Encyclopedia of GDR football . Verlag Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-89533-556-3 .
• Hanns Leske : The GDR league players. A lexicon . AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 2014, ISBN 978-3-89784-392-9 , page 99/100.

Web links

Commons : Rainer Ernst  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Rainer Ernst in the weltfussball.de database
• Rainer Ernst in the database of fussballdaten.de
• Rainer Ernst in the database of transfermarkt.de
• Rainer Ernst in the database of the German Football Association

Individual evidence

1. ^ Matthias Arnhold: Rainer Ernst - Matches in the Oberliga . RSSSF.com . September 24, 2010. Accessed December 18, 2019.
2. ^ Matthias Arnhold: Rainer Ernst - Goals in International Matches . RSSSF.com . December 12, 2002. Retrieved December 18, 2019.