Stephan Gross

This article is about the soccer player and coach Stephan Groß. For the philosopher and journalist see Stefan Groß .

Stephan Groß before a charity match in Karlsruhe (2010)

Stephan Groß (born October 23, 1953 ) is a former German soccer player and current coach, who played 113 games in the Bundesliga from 1980 to 1985 as a member of Karlsruher SC and scored 30 goals.

career

Mannheim / Ludwigshafen / Neckargerach, until 1978

Stephan Groß started playing soccer at TSV Neckarau . As a D-youth he then moved to VfL Neckarau , before he went through the youth classes with the blue-white-red lawn players from VfR Mannheim and gained his first experience in the senior division in the 1st amateur league in North Baden. After the round in 1971/72 he moved from the city of squares across the Rhine to southwest Ludwigshafen . Under coach Georg Gawliczek , the Mannheim talent made his debut on the first day of the match in the Southwest Football Regionalliga , on August 5, 1972, at the home game against SV Röchling Völklingen in what was then the second division. Groß scored his first goal in the Regionalliga on the fourth match day, on September 17, in a 2-2 draw against Phoenix Bellheim , when he brought Southwest 1-0 lead in the 21st minute of the game. In the second half of the season, the 4-1 home win against the same opponent stood out when Groß was able to excel as a four-time goalscorer on February 4, 1973. Südwest took ninth place in 1972/73 and the newcomer from VfR Mannheim had played 28 games and scored six goals. In the last game year of the old second-rate regional league era, 1973/74, Südwest occupied eleventh place in the table with the new coach Horst Kunzmann and the all-rounder Stephan Groß - he had played in 26 games with four goals - and could therefore not be for the new 2nd football -Bundesliga qualify from the 1974/75 round.

Since the ambitious 20-year-old had no offer from the professional area, he accepted the financially attractive offer from the ambitious amateur club SV Neckargerach and switched to the 2nd amateur league Odenwald. With the blue-whites from the stadium in the Au, he immediately rose to the 1st Amateur League North Baden and finished seventh with the promoted 1975/76. In the third season in Neckar Valley - 1976/77 - Groß and his teammates from SV Neckargerach won the championship in North Baden in front of SV Sandhausen and his home club VfR Mannheim.

In the promotion round to the 2nd Bundesliga South, the North Baden champions could not hold their own against the competition from Freiburg FC , SSV Reutlingen 05 and SSV Ulm 1846 and Groß returned to VfR Mannheim in 1977. With the VfR he could not manage the promotion to the 2nd Bundesliga - the lawn players took fourth place behind champions FV 09 Weinheim, Vice Sandhausen and the third 1. FC Pforzheim - but managed to move into the new season of the amateur league Baden- Württemberg. After a trial training session at Eintracht Braunschweig for the first time in 1976, the Mannheim midfielder and defender received a concrete offer from Karlsruher SC from the 2nd Bundesliga South and landed at the age of 24 in professional football.

Karlsruher SC, 1978 to 1985

With the new trainer Manfred Krafft and managing director Manfred Amerell , in addition to “Steps” Groß, the other newcomers Gerhard Busch , Gerhard Bold , Helmut Behr , Herbert Heider , Uwe Höfer and Wolfgang Schüler at the KSC, which is financially cautious, looked to talented, but also inexpensive Transfers set. After all, the newcomers to the wildlife park should compensate for the departures of Berger, Günther, Kübler, Kalb, Flindt, Balevski, Bredenfeld and Komorowski and help build a new team with a promising future. Stephan Groß and Gerhard Bold (Hassia Bingen) immediately developed into top performers in Baden and also played all 38 league games for KSC. In 1979 the Karlsruhe team took fifth place; Groß had successfully taken the step into professional football.

When in his second year in Karlsruhe with the technician Uwe Dittus and the Düsseldorf-returning Emanuel Günther two reinforcements were added for the offensive, coach Krafft led the KSC to second place behind champions 1. FC Nürnberg . Thus, the club qualified for the playoffs against the north vice Rot-Weiss Essen , in which the promotion to the Bundesliga was the issue. On matchday 39, May 18, 1980, in front of 55,000 spectators, KSC wrested a point from the leaders in Nuremberg with the equalizer goal from Groß in the 63rd minute to make the final score 1: 1 and thus his athletic qualification for the play-offs against the Northern representatives demonstrated. On June 6th, the KSC set the course for promotion to the Bundesliga with a surprisingly clear 5-1 home win against the Essen team around Willi Lippens and Frank Mill . Groß - he formed the midfield together with Bold, Wiesner and Trenkel - also distinguished himself as a goal scorer, but experienced a different Essen team in the second leg on Hafenstrasse.

The KSC was after a continuous assault by the North Vice in the 72nd minute with 0: 3 goals behind and more goals were permanently in the air for the red-whites driven by the outstandingly playing Lippens. Uwe Dittus - he had been sent to the field by coach Krafft after the Essen 3-0 lead - redeemed the Karlsruhe team with his 1: 3 goal in the 83rd minute, and KSC returned to the Bundesliga. Groß had played 38 games for Karlsruhe in the second year and scored nine goals.

In addition to the promotion, Groß and his teammates also demonstrated in the 1980 DFB Cup that the KSC had approached the Bundesliga level in terms of sport. Coach Krafft's team met Bundesliga club Borussia Mönchengladbach in the third main round via SC Freiburg and FC Augsburg . For Groß, this primarily brought about the confrontation with the dribbling and running strong Ewald Lienen . Substitute player Helmut Behr scored the winning goal to make Karlsruhe 1-0 in the 112th minute in front of 30,000 spectators in the Wildpark Stadium. In the round of 16, defending champion Fortuna Düsseldorf came to Karlsruhe on February 16, 1980 with Gerd Zewe and the Allofs brothers and prevailed in a high-scoring game with 5: 3 goals. On June 4, Düsseldorf also defended the trophy with a 2-1 win against 1. FC Köln. In the games against the Bundesliga club, adults and colleagues were able to gain self-confidence and other important experiences on their way to the Bundesliga.

In the first game in the Bundesliga, Groß immediately got to know the FC Bayern Munich class in the person of the outstanding attackers Karl-Heinz Rummenigge , Paul Breitner and Dieter Hoeneß . The team of coach Pál Csernai prevailed in front of 47,000 spectators with 3-0 goals against the promoted team and also won the German championship at the end of the round. The KSC surprised positively in the course of the round, especially the attacking defensive player Stephan Groß. The athletic and running outstanding midfielder and defender, as well as ex-Mannheimer equipped with technique, tackling strength and offensive spirit, scored the most goals for the newly promoted Bundesliga Karlsruhe with 14 goals.

In the games against Bayer Uerdingen (December 16, 1980) and MSV Duisburg (February 14, 1981) he distinguished himself as the sole goalscorer in the 3-0 and 2-0 successes. His performance was also registered by the DFB coaching team Jupp Derwall and Erich Ribbeck and led him to the B national team in April and May 1981 . Groß made his debut on April 28 in the 2-0 success of the B-Elf in Coimbra against Portugal at the side of Klaus Augenthaler , Dieter Müller and Norbert Nigbur . In his first Bundesliga round, he had played all 34 games and scored 14 goals.

In the second round 1981/82 he confirmed his class in a further 34 games with eleven hits and was also used by the DFB in three other B international matches against Poland, Luxembourg and Portugal. He also got to know Max Merkel's coaching work from November 27, 1981 to June 30, 1982 . By the end of his professional career in Karlsruhe - the last game in the 2. Bundesliga graduated "Steps" Great on November 2, 1985 - it was then the consistent performance athletes nor the coaches Horst Franz , Lothar Strehlau , Werner Olk and Lothar Buchmann do had. Groß played for KSC from 1978 to 1985 in the Bundesliga - rounds 1980/81 to 1982/83 and 1984/85 - 113 games with 30 goals and in the 2nd division - 1978–80, 1983/84 and 1985/86 - 121 games with 20 goals were added.

At the turn of 1985/86 he ended his engagement in Karlsruhe and joined the FV 09 Weinheim in the amateur league of Baden-Württemberg and scored 16 goals in 16 games in the second half of the Bergstrasse and thus contributed significantly to their relegation.

As a player-coach, he won with the Red-Blacks from the Sepp-Herberger Stadium in the 1987/88 round of the league championship and took part in the promotion round to the 2nd Bundesliga against competitors 1. FSV Mainz 05 , Viktoria Aschaffenburg and the SpVgg Unterhaching .

Trainer

From 1989 to 1992 Groß was the coach of the football league of Baden-Württemberg in the Hardtwaldstadion of SV Sandhausen , before he was assistant coach at Kickers Offenbach from 1992 to 1995 alongside head coach Hans-Jürgen Boysen . Then he devoted himself to youth work: first in Boysen's football school; Then from 2001 to 2007 he worked in the youth department at VfL Neckarau , where he looked after his son Pascal , who later played in the Bundesliga and Premier League , from the E-Jugend .

From 2007 Stephan Groß was full-time head of the youth performance center Waldhof-Mannheim on Alsenweg, which is supported by Dietmar Hopp through his foundation “Anpfiff ins Leben”. In addition, Groß still takes care of the bookkeeping in his wife's pharmacy in Neckarau. In 2013, Groß was the coach of VfR Mannheim .

literature

• Matthias Kropp, Germany's major soccer teams, part 11: Karlsruher SC, AGON Sportverlag, 1998, ISBN 3-89609-115-8 .
• Matthias Weinrich: Second League Almanac. All players. All clubs. All results. AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 2001, ISBN 3-89784-190-8 .
• Matthias Weinrich: Encyclopedia of German League Football. Volume 4: 35 years of the Bundesliga. Part 2. Goals, crises & a successful trio 1975–1987. Stories, pictures, constellations, tables. AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 1999, ISBN 3-89784-133-9 .
• Matthias Dreisigacker, Publishing House Block Eins (ed.), "Auf, ihr Helden!", No. 16, August 28, 2009, Karlsruhe.