Werner Lang (soccer player)

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Werner Lang (born August 12, 1924 - March 17, 1999 ) was a German football player and coach. The long-time team captain of Bremerhaven 93 completed 310 league games from 1948 to 1960 in what was then the first-class Oberliga Nord and scored 32 goals as a defender in the World Cup system . In the all-time ranking of the Oberliga Nord, he ranks fifth behind Otmar Sommerfeld (362), Harald Stender (336) and the two identical Dragomir Ilic and Hans Hagenacker with 311 league appearances each.

career

Associations until 1960

Werner Lang started playing football as a youth at SC Plauen. After returning from British captivity, he first landed in Lamstedt in the Cuxhaven district , where he was active as a handball player. After moving to Bremerhaven, he joined the local TuS in 1893 and quickly found his way back to football. After a short start-up period, he made the leap into the first team with the promoted team in the Northern Football League. On November 28, 1948, the Vogtland native made his debut in the 3-0 away defeat at Concordia Hamburg on half right in the Oberligaelf von Bremerhaven 93. At the end of the round, the 93ers finished 12th and last with 14:30 points and Lang had 13 games completed two goals. Holstein Kiel was excluded from the league in November 1948 and relegation was suspended and the season was increased to 16 clubs. In his second league round, 1949/50, the strong team player under Austrian coach Gustav Wieser played all 30 league games for the "Weinroten" and scored nine goals to reach tenth place.

From the 1950/51 season, Helmuth Johannsen was responsible for the training management of the club from the city at the mouth of the Weser. With his seriousness, professionalism and correctness of work, the later Bundesliga coach established the 93er in the midfield of the Oberliga Nord. Johannsen gave the technically adept, extremely enthusiastic and universally deployable defensive player, stopper and defender the attribute "iron" and Lang was soon considered one of the best footballers in Northern Germany. He held the post of captain in the club as well as in the NFV selection for years.

Lang experienced the most successful season after Johannsen left for Holstein Kiel and Robert Gebhardt took over as coach , who played five games for the "Weinroten" in the last Johannsen season in 1953/54, in the 1954/55 round . The round start brought the captain of the 96 with his teammates a 3-1 home win in the Zollinlandstadion against the reigning German champions Hannover 96 on August 22, 1954. This was followed by three more successes against Bremer SV, VfB Oldenburg and VfL Osnabrück and thus the Leading the table with 8: 0 points. The 0: 3 away defeat by three goals by the young center forward Uwe Seeler at Hamburger SV on matchday five brought disillusionment to the "Zolli", but it did not lead to a crash into the midfield of the league. In the second half of the season it was enough for Lang and his teammates in front of 13,000 spectators on April 17, 1955 to a 2-2 home draw against the record champions of the north. With the best defense in the north, only 38 goals conceded, the 96ers landed in second place and moved into the finals of the German football championship in 1955 as runner-up. In the third round in a row, the captain had once again played all 30 rounds and scored two goals. With defender Horst Wagenbreth and half-striker Max König two other players completed all 30 league games of the "Weinroten". Hamburger SV became champions with a goal difference of 108: 41 goals, while the two goal scorers of the "Rautträger", Günter Schlegel and Uwe Seeler, had exactly the same number of goals as vice-champions Bremerhaven with 56 goals with 28 goals each. Heiner Mokroß distinguished himself as the top scorer with 19 goals for Bremerhaven.

Before the actual final round, the Gebhardt protégés had to play a qualifying game against Southwest Vice Wormatia Worms on May 4th in Düsseldorf. The game ended after extra time with a 3-3 draw. One (!) Day later, on May 5th, Bremerhaven prevailed in the replay with a 3-2 victory and was thus qualified for Group II in the final round. Opponents were Rot-Weiss Essen, Worms and Kickers Offenbach, but not in the "Zolli" in the Lehe district, determined by the DFB in the Weserstadion in Bremen. In the “away” home games, Lang and his 93ers prevailed 1-0 against Worms and 2-0 against Südmeister Kickers Offenbach and defied the eventual German champions Rot-Weiss Essen - RWE won the final on June 26 with 4: 3 against 1. FC Kaiserslautern - a 1-1 draw in front of 15,000 spectators. The goal scorer was captain Lang. TuS took second place in the group with 6: 6 points. The "iron" Lang had played all eight finals and scored two goals.

Previously, the Gebhardt-Elf had already convinced in the games for the DFB Cup in 1955. In the first main round they prevailed with a 5-1 home win in the "Zolli" against SpVgg Erkenschwick with the young Horst Szymaniak and on December 19, 1954, a 3-1 win against Hamburger SV, where Lang found himself in first and foremost in the duels against the young talented half-striker Klaus Stürmer had to prove. In the quarter-finals, FC Schalke 04 finished the further path of the "Zolli" -Elf in the cup with a 2-0 victory in the local Glückauf-Kampfbahn .

Lang and colleagues could no longer follow up on the runner-up in the next rounds, the two fifth places in 1958 and 1960 were the best placements. When younger players , including Uwe Klimaschefski , Klaus Niemuth and Siegfried Presche , came up, the 35-year-old record player played his last league game for Bremerhaven 93 in a 1-1 draw against Eintracht Osnabrück on April 10, 1960.

In Prüß it is stated that Lang was perhaps the best player ever to have worn the "red wine" dress. Its consistency is also emphasized and underlined with the example that the outside runner, defender and stopper did not miss a single point game (including the final round) from April 1952 to October 1955.

Selection player, 1953-1959

On October 10, 1953 in Dortmund, one day before the World Cup qualifying game of the German national soccer team in Stuttgart against Saarland, Lang made his debut in the representative game between West Germany and North Germany in the dress of the NFV selection . He came into the game at the beginning of the second half for left winger Alfred Beck from FC St. Pauli. Fritz Laband from Hamburger SV played defender and Herbert Burdenski was the middle runner in the north selection. Heinrich Kwiatkowski , Erich Juskowiak , Felix Gerritzen and Alfred Kelbassa recommended themselves in the 2-0 victorious West-Elf in front of 30,000 spectators, with excellent performances for the Herberger team. On November 22, 1953, the national team defeated Norway 5-1 in another World Cup qualifier. The day before, on November 21, also in Hamburg, the man from Bremerhaven was on the field in a test match of the NFV selection against the B national team. Before the decisive second game against Saarland on March 28, 1954, two representative games of the regional selection Berlin against West and North against Southwest were scheduled for the national coach on February 28, 1954 for viewing purposes. In Hamburg, Lang played in front of 35,000 spectators in the 2: 4 defeat as the right runner alongside Laband, Jupp Posipal , Erich Haase , Heinz Wozniakowski , Werner Erb , Heinz Bung Bottle and Heinz Patzig . The south-west team was grouped around Fritz and Ottmar Walter , Horst Eckel , Werner Kohlmeyer , Heinz Kubsch and Horst Schmutzler, and Lang especially got to know the art of playing from Fritz Walter (half-left). Sepp Herberger announced a 54-strong provisional World Cup squad at the beginning of March. Lang was listed among the right runners alongside Eckel, Karl-Heinz Metzner , Michael Pfeiffer , Paul Mebus , Gerhard Bergner and Alfred Brüggen . On March 24, 1954, the man from Bremerhaven made his debut in the international match in Gelsenkirchen against England in the B national team . In the 4-0 defeat against the pros from the island, the defensive of the DFB-Elf with goalkeeper Kwiatkowski, the defenders Rudolf Deinert and Herbert Erhardt , as well as the runner row with Lang, Herbert Schäfer and Gerhard Harpers was formed. But he was not nominated for the actual World Cup squad.

Before the football world championship in Sweden in 1958, the 93-player captain moved back into the field of vision of the national coach. In mid-April 1958, Lang was reported to FIFA in the DFB's 40-man squad. In addition to Horst Eckel , Hans Sturm and Karl Borutta , he was listed among the right outer runners. On April 23 and 29, he was used by Herberger in two test matches. First in Kassel in front of 35,000 spectators in a test of an A selection against a B selection, which ended in a 1: 1 draw. The defensive of the B-selection formed thereby with goalkeeper Günter Sawitzki , the defenders Walter Zastrau and Leo Konopczynski , as well as the runner row with Lang, Rudolf Hoffmann and Hans Weilbächer . In the second test match six days later in Essen, he was substituted in for the young Karl-Heinz Schnellinger in the second half . The last screening game took place with the B national team on May 1, 1958 in Luxembourg against the hosts. With Rudolf Hoffmann and Karl Mai , Lang formed the runner row in his third international B match. The game was surprisingly lost 4-1 and did not bring the participants any bonus for inclusion in the final World Cup squad. Lang was part of the final World Cup course from May 12 to 24, 1958 at the Munich-Grünwald sports school, which Herberger conducted with 25 participants. Due to a training injury, he was eliminated in the race for the World Cup places.

For the selection of the NFV, the long-time captain played eleven official games from 1953 to 1959.

Trainer

From 1964/65 to 1966/67, the top division record player TuS Bremerhaven trained in what was then the second division of the North Regional Football League . In the third regional league season, 1965/66 , he finished fourth with Bremerhaven behind FC St. Pauli, Göttingen 05 and Holstein Kiel. His then player base included goalkeeper Helmut Fischer and field players Heiko Klimaschefski, Adolf Neumann, Heino Hildebrand, Hans-Wilhelm Jacobsen, Reinhard Ringel, Hermann Gehrke, Walter Emler, Joachim Röpert and the 21-time goalscorer Hermann Pohlmann. After working as a regional league coach, he took over the TuS 93 amateur team.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hardy Green, Lorenz Knieriem: Encyclopedia of German League Football. Volume 8: Player Lexicon 1890–1963. P. 224.
  2. ^ Jens Reimer Prüß: Bung bottle with flat pass cork. The history of the Oberliga Nord 1947–1963. Pp. 118-119.

Web link

Players A – Z (bung bottle) , visited on March 17, 2020

personal data
SURNAME Lang, Werner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH August 12, 1924
DATE OF DEATH March 17, 1999