Ralf Kraft

Ralf Kraft (born February 24, 1957 ) is a former German soccer player. For the BSG Wismut Gera and BSG Wismut Aue , Kraft completed 156 games (6 goals) in the top division of the GDR from 1977 to 1986.

Athletic career

After Ralf Kraft had run through the youth teams of the company sports community (BSG) Wismut Gera from 1968 , he played his first games in the second-rate GDR league . In his first GDR league season in 1976/77 he already had a regular place as a defensive player from the 8th day of play and by the end of the season he had 14 point games and one goal. The team was promoted to the GDR league, and Kraft was nominated for the team. However, the new coach Gerhard Waidhas did not find the ideal position for Kraft, he also had to pause several times, so that he only made 15 appearances in the 26 league games without a regular position and without a goal.

Nevertheless, in 1978, Ralf Kraft was delegated by BSG Wismut Gera to the football focus of the Wismut sports association , the upper division BSG Wismut Aue . His coach Manfred Fuchs first experimented with his new player in 1978/79 and used him in different positions in the first half of the season, both in defense and in midfield. It was not until the second half of the season that he found the ideal place for strength with the left defender. He ended his first season in Aue with 24 out of 26 possible appearances. One of his most successful seasons completed Kraft 1979/80, in which he only missed one league game, but scored three goals. Subsequently, however, his football career was interrupted because he was drafted into the National People's Army for 18 months for military service in May 1980 . After his release, Kraft returned to the BSG Wismut Aue, where he was immediately given a regular place from November 1981. But now he switched to the right defensive side under coach Hans-Ulrich Thomale and played the remaining 16 league games. After 21 league games in 1982/83, after being used eleven times in the first half of 1983, Kraft was injured so badly on matchday 12 that he was out for the rest of the season. With the beginning of the 1984/85 season he was fully restored after surviving the operation and only missed one league game. In addition, he was used in four of six games that Wismut Aue Intertoto-Cup completed in 1984 . 1985/86 Kraft paused several times in the league and only came to 18 missions there. In between he played four times with the 2nd team in the GDR league. But he also made ten international appearances, four in the 1985 Intertoto Cup and two games in the 1985/86 UEFA Cup . There Wismut Aue had to compete against the Soviet representative Dnepr Dnepropetrovsk in the first round and retired early after two defeats (1: 2, 1: 3). Kraft was present in both meetings with short deployments.

For the 1986/87 season Ralf Kraft returned to Gera and played three seasons in the GDR league with BSG Wismut. He went through a change from defender to striker. In the three seasons up to 1988/89 with a total of 102 games, Kraft came on 83 missions with another two goals. 1989/90 he completed his last season in the national game operation with GDR league club BSG dkk Scharfenstein-Krumhermsdorf , where he also played his last 21 GDR league games. The BSG dkk was relegated at the end of the season and, like Ralf Kraft, did not return to the higher leagues. Later he also worked as a trainer for various lower-class clubs.

literature

• The new football week : born 1950–1990. ISSN  0323-8407
• Hanns Leske : Encyclopedia of GDR football . Verlag Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-89533-556-3 , p. 272.
• Andreas Baingo , Michael Horn: The History of the GDR Oberliga . Verlag Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-89533-428-6 , pp. 291, 316.

Web links

• Ralf Kraft in the database of the German Football Association
• Ralf Kraft in the database of weltfussball.de
• Ralf Kraft at bsg-wismut-aue.de