Rudolf Hoffmann (soccer player)

Rudolf "Rudi" Hoffmann (born February 11, 1935 in Östringen ) is a former German soccer player who took part in the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne as an active member of the German amateur soccer team . Before that, Viktoria Aschaffenburg's defender had already played in the senior national team on May 28, 1955 as a 20-year-old in the international match against Ireland (2-1) . Hoffmann won the DFB Cup with VfB Stuttgart in 1958 .

Club career

The middle runner began his career as a youth at home FC Östringen in what was then the Bruchsal district , then moved to the southern upper division Viktoria Aschaffenburg in 1952 as a 17-year-old due to family ties . At Viktoria he made his debut on January 31, 1954 in the away game against FC Schweinfurt 05 (1: 6) in the Oberliga Süd. This was followed by six more rounds and at the end of the round, relegation to the 2nd League South. The defensive talent returned as runner-up in 1954/55 with Aschaffenburg immediately in the Oberliga Süd. In the 1955/56 season, the team from the stadium at Schönbusch took fifth place in the Oberliga Süd; Hoffmann had played 26 league games and played his way into the notebook of national coach Sepp Herberger . After the round of 1956/57, which Viktoria finished eighth and national player Hoffmann had scored three goals in 27 league appearances, he was committed to the 1957/58 season by VfB Stuttgart.

Hoffmann, like the other VfB newcomer Rolf Geiger, was banned from the DFB for violating the contract player statute. He would have gotten money secretly in Aschaffenburg, even though he had competed as an amateur at the 1956 Summer Olympics as a member of the German amateur national team. After a ten-month ban, Hoffmann only made his debut on April 6, 1958, on the penultimate round match day, in a 1-0 home win against SSV Reutlingen at VfB Stuttgart in the major league. He could only play two point games in his first season at VfB; Rolf Geiger was in three games (1 goal) and the team of VfB coach Georg Wurzer therefore only finished 9th.

At the end of the 1957/58 round, Stuttgart won the South German Cup on June 25, 1958 in Mannheim with a 2-1 win against FC Schweinfurt 05. Hoffmann played defender, Robert Schlienz was center runner and Erwin Waldner and Rolf Geiger excelled as goal scorers. VfB was thus qualified for the first round of the DFB Cup. On September 21, 1958, Stuttgart reached the cup final with a 4-1 win at 1. FC Saarbrücken . That took place on November 16, 1958 in Kassel against Fortuna Düsseldorf. In front of 28,000 spectators, VfB prevailed 4-3 after extra time in the Auestadion . The league round ended with Schlienz, Sawitzki, Geiger, Waldner and Hoffmann in 5th place with 30:30 points. The ex-Aschaffenburg had made 28 league appearances and scored one goal. In Georg Wurzer's last year as coach and in the year after Schlienz, 1959/60, Hoffmann took seventh place with VfB; he had appeared in 26 league games. In the summer of 1960 he joined the FK Pirmasens in the Oberliga Südwest .

With the team around goalkeeper Heinz Kubsch and playmaker and goalscorer Helmut Kapitulski , Hoffmann took third place twice (1961 and 1963) and was runner-up in the Southwest League in 1962 . In the two final round matches for the German soccer championship in 1962, however, defensive boss Hoffmann conceded 14 goals against Hamburger SV (3: 6; center forward Uwe Seeler scored four goals) and Eintracht Frankfurt (1: 8; center forward Erwin Stein scored five goals). At the age of 28, Hoffmann ended his contract playing career in 1963. He went back to the amateur camp and played for two years at FC Rodalben before he returned to his homeland in Östringen and finally ended his career there in 1968.

Stations

• FC Östringen (1945–1952, as a youth)
• Viktoria Aschaffenburg (1952–1957; 59 league games, 3 goals)
• VfB Stuttgart (1957-1960; 56 league games, 1 goal)
• FK Pirmasens (1960–1963; 61 league games, 2 goals)
• FC Rodalben (1963-1965)

International assignments

As a 19-year-old Viktoria Aschaffenburg's defensive talent took part in a national team course under national coach Herberger from November 22 to 29, 1954 at the Grünberg sports school before the international match against England on December 1 in London. His second Herberger course took place from March 14th to 18th, 1955 at the Schöneck Sports School in Karlsruhe; but also in the international match on March 30th in Stuttgart against Italy (1: 2) he was not allowed to participate. On March 23, 1955, Hoffmann had been able to prove his international aptitude in Sheffield at the international match of the B national team against England (1: 1). On May 28, 1955, Hoffmann played once for the senior national team in a 2-1 win against Ireland in the Volksparkstadion . The young Hoffmann (20 years) played the middle runner and was supported by the two experienced outside runners Robert Schlienz and Karl Mai . When the DFB played their first international match with the U23 junior team on June 25, 1955 , Hoffmann represented the German colors in Frankfurt in the 3: 3 against Yugoslavia as a middle runner. On August 7, he was the middle runner of the southern German selection in the representative game in Hamburg against the northern German selection (3: 4) and then belonged to the squad for the international match on August 21 in Moscow against the Soviet Union (2: 3). Herberger entrusted the middle runner role to Werner Liebrich .

Despite his 10-month suspension and therefore only two league appearances in 1957/58, Hoffmann was part of the German squad at the 1958 World Cup in Sweden , but was one of the four players (still Hermann Nuber , Wolfgang Peters , Günter Sawitzki ) who only played in Germany Available on demand, but Sepp Herberger made no use of it. He had participated in the World Cup course with 25 players from May 12 to 24, 1958 in Munich-Grünwald. In addition, he was five times in the B national team between 1955 and 1958 (three times in his Aschaffenburg, twice in his time in Stuttgart) and four times in the amateur national team (1955 and 1956), with the latter he also took part in the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne . On November 24, 1956, the German team competed there against the eventual Olympic champion, the Soviet Union , but was eliminated from the tournament after the 1: 2 defeat after the first game.

He belonged to the elite group of 20 national players who were in the four "big" DFB teams (A, B, amateurs and juniors).

Life after football

Rudolf Hoffmann returned to his hometown in northern Baden, Östringen , where he worked as a commercial clerk at a company in the plastics industry . His younger brother Theodor Hoffmann played with VfB Stuttgart in the Bundesliga .

literature

• Lorenz Knieriem, Hardy Grüne : Player Lexicon 1890 - 1963 . In: Encyclopedia of German League Football . tape 8 . AGON, Kassel 2006, ISBN 3-89784-148-7 , p. 155 .
• Hardy Greens: With the ring on your chest. The history of VfB Stuttgart. Publishing house Die Werkstatt. Göttingen 2007. ISBN 978-3-89533-593-8 .
• Werner Skrentny: Football World Cup 1958 Sweden. Agon, Kassel 2002, ISBN 3-89784-192-4 .
• Kicker-Almanach 2004. Copress, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-7679-0803-4 .

Web links

• Rudolf Hoffmann in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )