Wilhelm Weber (soccer player)

Wilhelm "Willi" Weber (born September 11, 1925 in Offenbach am Main ) is a German football player who played most of his career with the Offenbacher Kickers and who was once in the B national team in 1952 . From 1945 to 1957, the offensive player played 303 league games for the OFC in what was then the first-class soccer Oberliga Süd and scored 53 goals. Under coach Paul Oßwald , he won the southern German championship twice in 1949 and 1955 and played 15 games in the finals of the German soccer championship from 1949 to 1955 (3 goals) and was also part of the final against VfB Stuttgart (1: 2) on June 25, 1950 in Berlin.

Kickers Offenbach, 1945–1958

Beginning

After the end of the Second World War, at the age of 20, Willi Weber returned with his parents and brother Fred from Wittenberge to his hometown in Offenbach. Weber had been in the city on the Elbe , in Prignitz in the northeast of the state of Brandenburg , had played football for Herta Wittenberge for years and immediately joined the OFC after returning.

Oberliga Süd, 1945 to 1957

Under coach Rudolf Keller and alongside teammates like Fred Patzl (goalkeeper), Heini Abt, Ferdi Emberger, Erich Nowotny, Fred Harthaus , Heinz "Knorze" Kaster , Willi Keim, Heinrich Keller, Emil Maier , Ludwig Mohler, Anton Picard and Karl Göhlich occupied Offenbach in 1945/46 with 24:36 points in the debut season of the Oberliga Süd in 12th place. Early returnees from captivity continuously changed the team image and so it happened that the OFC used around 33 players in this round, including Willi Weber. In the second half of the season, on June 16, 1946, at the local derby against Eintracht Frankfurt, Weber ran 1-1 on Offenbach's left wing. When Paul Oßwald's coaching era began on the Bieberer Berg in the 1946/47 season and Kurt Schreiner stepped up the offensive, the team improved to fifth place. Weber was accused in both games against Eintracht Frankfurt: on November 17, 1946 in a 1-1 home draw in front of 15,000 spectators and also on April 20, 1947 in a 2-1 defeat in front of 35,000 spectators in Frankfurt. In the second half of the season, Weber's men defied the superior champions 1. FC Nürnberg in a home game on March 9, 1947, with a 1-1 draw.

Willi Weber experienced his first title win with the OFC in the Oberliga Süd in the 1948/49 season, when he played all 30 league games and scored 15 goals. The lightning-fast winger and producer of numerous assists was the second best scorer in the championship round of Offenbach behind center forward Emil Maier at 19 and ahead of Albert Wirsching with 14 goals. The OFC not only won the southern title by eleven points, the team had also scored the most (79) goals and received the fewest (29). The two derbies against Eintracht Frankfurt were won 3-1 and 5-0 respectively. In the attack, Offenbach mostly played with Kurt Schreiner, Horst Buhtz , Emil Maier, Albert Wirsching and Willi Weber. After the preliminary round, the Oßwald team led the table with 28: 2 points, but then lost the away game at 1. FC Nürnberg sensationally high with 1: 8 on matchday 18, February 6, 1949. Weber had brought the OFC 1-0 lead. In 14 games, the left winger entered the list of goalscorers, only in a 5-0 home win in the first half of the season against FC Rödelheim he scored two goals in one game. In the final round of the German football championship in 1949, the South German champions Kickers Offenbach failed on June 26, 1949 in the Schalke Glückauf-Kampfbahn in front of 55,000 spectators in the semifinals after a 2-1 defeat at the vice-champions of the Oberliga Süd, VfR Mannheim . The Mannheim lawn players prevailed on July 10, 1949 with a 3-2 win after extra time against Borussia Dortmund in the final of the German championship and the OFC lost the game for third place with 1: 2 after extra time on July 9 the new football power from the southwest, 1. FC Kaiserslautern. Weber had played as a left winger in each of the four finals.

As defending champion Offenbach had to be content with third place in 1949/50; but this was enough to return to the finals, since this was held in 1950 with 16 clubs. After the opening success with 3: 1 against Tennis Borussia Berlin , the southern third had to face Hamburger SV on May 4th in Düsseldorf. Jupp Posipal's team led 2-0 at half-time . In the 88th minute, Weber, who was used as the left connector - Heinz Baas stormed on the left wing - decided the game for his team with a goal to make it 3-2. In the semifinals against Prussia Dellbrück , Offenbach needed a replay (3-0) to move into the final, which was played on June 25, 1950 against the southern runners-up VfB Stuttgart . The protégés of coach Georg Wurzer prevailed in front of 90,000 spectators in the Olympic Stadium with 2-1 goals against Offenbach. The OFC attack with Gerhard Kaufhold, Albert Wirsching, Horst Buhtz, Willi Weber and Heinz Baas had only brought the connection goal in the 47th minute. Weber had played all five games in the finals and scored two goals.

In the rounds of 1951/52 and 1953/54, third ranks followed in the Oberliga Süd, before winning the championship again in the south in 1954/55 in Switzerland after the World Cup in 1954 . With a two point lead over SSV Reutlingen and FC Schweinfurt 05, they won the title. Weber had played all 30 league games and scored five goals. In the final round, the future champions Rot-Weiss Essen with the top performers Fritz Herkenrath , Heinz Wewers , Helmut Rahn , Franz Islacker , August Gottschalk and Bernhard Termath proved to be clearly too strong; both games were lost to the West Masters with 1: 3 and 1: 4 respectively. Again Weber had played all six final round matches and thus completed a total of 15 games for the German championship with three goals in Offenbach's dress.

With the two league appearances on September 29 and December 7, 1957 against Schweinfurt 05 (1: 1) and FSV Frankfurt (2: 0), Willi Weber finally ended his long league career after a total of 303 league appearances with 53 goals in the summer of 1958.

Selection games, 1948–1955

During the representative game between southern Germany and northern Germany on October 17, 1948 in Nuremberg, Willi Weber stormed the southern team on the left wing. In front of 42,000 spectators, he was the goalscorer for the southern selection at 1-1. On March 13, the second leg took place in Hanover and ended with a 1-0 win for the hosts. The two Offenbachers Buhtz and Weber formed the left wing of the southern selection. In 1952, the DFB only played one international match with the B national team. That took place on November 9th in Basel against Switzerland. Weber played on half left, center forward Willi Schröder from Bremen scored both goals in the 2-0 win for the German team. On the same day, the senior national team defeated Switzerland's senior eleven 5-1 in Augsburg. Hans Schäfer made his debut with two goals on the left wing and that solved the wing problem in this position for years. 14 days later, on November 24, 1952, national coach Herberger carried out a test match with a DFB selection in Berlin against the city selection there. The Herberger protégés prevailed 4-1 and Weber and Helmut Preisendörfer from OFC had stormed in the winning team on the left wing.

Willi Weber was last used in a selection at the age of 30. The city selection of Frankfurt / Offenbach lost on October 26, 1955 in London against the city selection there in the competition of the exhibition cup with 2: 3 goals. Weber played the left wing runner and had OFC colleagues Helmut Sattler, Willi Magel, Willi Keim, Engelbert Kraus and Gerhard Kaufhold by his side.

particularities

Willi Weber experienced the "times of hunger" after the Second World War as a footballer for Kickers Offenbach. In the book about the Oberliga Süd from Klartext Verlag in Essen, team colleague Gerhard Kaufhold is quoted as follows:

“How often did we go to the country for two or three sacks of potatoes. And if a rural host offered us a good meal and a drink, then let's go. The main thing was that there was something to eat. "

The trips to East Asia in 1953 with ten games in Hong Kong, Japan, India and the Philippines, the trip to the Soviet Union and a major trip to the USA were outstanding moments for the OFC players in this era.

job

Weber had been an innkeeper for a long time. He had learned the skills for this from the Kickers host in the clubhouse on the Bieberer Berg: He married the daughter of the club host. In later years Weber moved to Kirchheimbolanden.

literature

• Hardy Grüne , Lorenz Knieriem: Encyclopedia of German League Football. Volume 8: Player Lexicon 1890–1963. AGON-Sportverlag, Kassel 2006, ISBN 3-89784-148-7 , p. 410.
• Werner Skrentny (Ed.): When Morlock still met the moonlight. The history of the Oberliga Süd 1945–1963. Klartext, Essen 1993, ISBN 3-88474-055-5 .
• Klaus Querengässer: The German football championship. Part 2: 1948–1963 (= AGON-Sportverlag statistics. Vol. 29). AGON-Sportverlag, Kassel 1997, ISBN 3-89609-107-7 .