Wolfgang Sühnholz

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Wolfgang Sühnholz
Personnel
birthday September 14, 1946
place of birth Berlin ,  Germany
date of death December 27, 2019
Place of death Georgetown, Texas ,  USA
size 185 cm
position Storm
Juniors
Years station
Hertha Zehlendorf
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
1965-1970 FC Hertha 03 Zehlendorf 122 (38)
1970-1971 Rot-Weiß Oberhausen 32 0(6)
1971-1973 FC Bayern Munich 25 0(4)
1974 Grasshopper Club Zurich 6 0(0)
1974-1975 Tennis Borussia Berlin 8 0(1)
1975-1976 Boston Minutemen 23 0(8)
1976 Toronto Metros-Croatia 4 0(0)
1976 Vancouver Whitecaps 2 0(0)
1977 Las Vegas Quicksilvers 20 0(4)
1978 Los Angeles Aztecs 14 0(5)
1978-1980 California Surf 31 0(3)
Stations as a trainer
Years station
1987-1989 Austin Sockadillos (Assistant)
1989-1991 Austin Sockadillos
1994-1997 Austin Lone Stars
1997 USA U16 (Assistant)
1998-1999 Austin Lone Stars
1999-2001 USA U20
2008-2009 Austin Aztex U23
1 Only league games are given.

Wolfgang Sühnholz (born September 14, 1946 in Berlin ; † December 27, 2019 in Georgetown (Texas) ) was a German-American football player and coach . Originally a player at Hertha Zehlendorf in Berlin, he became German champion in 1972 with FC Bayern and in 1976 North American champion with Toronto Metros-Croatia . He later settled in the US as a coach.

Player career

Wolfgang "Sprotte" Sühnholz began his career at the Berlin club Hertha Zehlendorf . His time with the Berliners describes the club's most successful period. With the "little Hertha" he won the championships of the regional football league Berlin in 1969 and 1970. However , the Zehlendorfer were not very successful in the subsequent participation in the Bundesliga promotion round . The most prominent player was the tall defender Uwe "Funkturm" Kliemann, who later had a long career in the Bundesliga, which also led him to the national team.

For the 1970/71 season he moved together with Kliemann to Rot-Weiß Oberhausen , who was preparing for his second season in the House of Lords. RWO used to pay 800 marks a month for the bachelors and 1000 marks for the fathers. Sühnholz was a regular from the beginning and should come to 32 league games. He scored his first of six goals this season in a remarkable 8: 1 win against Hamburger SV on matchday eight. Nevertheless, the Rhinelander escaped relegation in the end with a goal difference that was one goal better than Kickers Offenbach , which was probably also thanks to Lothar Kobluhn , who became the top scorer in the Bundesliga with 24 goals.

For the 1971/72 season he moved to runner-up FC Bayern Munich with Franz Krauthausen . He was immediately part of the regular cast and was only absent in two of the first 27 league games. In the quarter -final second leg of the DFB Cup on April 12, 1972, in the 1: 5 defeat in the away game against 1. FC Köln , which went down in cup history as the “Battle of Cologne” because of its hardness, Sühnholz suffered after a foul by Jupp Kapellmann had such a complicated broken leg that he was unable to play for more than a year. After Bayern won the championship with Franz Beckenbauer , Gerd Müller and goalkeeper Sepp Maier in 1972, they were able to defend their title in 1972/73, although Sühnholz had no part in it due to his injury.

After ten days of trial training at Grasshopper Club Zurich in November 1973, he signed a contract there until the end of the season. Almost two years after his injury in Cologne, he played six league games in March and April 1974, albeit one over 90 minutes, for the Zurich team, who ended the season as runner-up.

For the 1974/75 season he joined the champions of the Regionalliga Berlin and Bundesliga promoted tennis Borussia Berlin . For TeBe, who had also signed the 35-year-old Karl-Heinz Schnellinger , who returned from Italy , he had eight missions; all in the first ten league games, all but one lost. In his last game on October 19, 1974 in the 3-2 defeat in the away game against Fortuna Düsseldorf , he also scored his last Bundesliga goal.

Play in the North American Soccer League

He had little hope of a comeback in German pay football and so he took the opportunity in 1975 to play in the North American Soccer League, which caused a sensation due to the move from Pelé to New York Cosmos . First with the Boston Minuteman , where he played in a team with Benfica legends Eusébio and António Simões and US goalkeeper star Shep Messing , he managed to establish himself there as a solid player. In 1975 and 1976 he scored eight goals in 20 games there.

After the bankruptcy of the Minutemen, he played two games for the Vancouver Whitecaps coached by Eckhard Krautzun in 1976 together with the German national player Horst Köppel , before he played at the end of the 1976 season together with Eusébio at the Toronto Metros-Croatia . With Toronto he won the US championship, the Soccer Bowl , with a 3-0 final victory over the Minnesota Kicks . Sühnholz was chosen as the best player of the finals, the "Most Valuable Player". In both 1975 and 1976, Sühnholz was honored with an honorable mention in the selection of the All-Star Team.

In 1977 he played again with Eusébio, plus António "Toni" Oliveira and his old companion from Oberhausen and Munich, Franz Krauthausen, for the Las Vegas Quicksilvers , for which he met four times in 20 games. Despite being the last to leave the group stage, this time Sühnholz made it to the All-Star team of the season alongside Beckenbauer, Pelé, George Best and world champion goalkeeper Gordon Banks .

In 1978 he played first in the hall and then in the championship for the Los Angeles Aztecs . The Northern Irishman George Best was his most prominent teammate here. The Aztecs were only last in the group and did not take part in the play-offs. In 1978 he moved to California Surf , based in Anaheim near Los Angeles , with whom he was eliminated after six games in the first round of the play-offs. He stayed with Surf until the end of his career, where he played again with Franz Krauthausen in 1979. Surf survived the group stage in both years, but was eliminated at the next best opportunity. In 1979/80 he took part in the indoor competition of the Major Soccer League for the New York Arrows .

Coaching career

After his playing career, after holding soccer camps, he settled in Austin , Texas, as a coach from 1983 . After he rose from assistant coach to head coach at the Austin Sockadillos in the late 1980s, he later held this role with the Austin Lone Stars. From 1996 to 2001 he was a coach at the USSF , the US football association. From 1996 to 1999 he was assistant coach of the U16 and U20 national teams, then head coach of the U20 national team for two years. After his time as a coach in the youth division of the association, Sühnholz was the coach of the Austin Aztex U23 in the USL Premier Development League from late 2007 until its dissolution and transition to the Orlando City franchise in October 2010.

On December 19, 2019, he was admitted to Georgetown Hospital, where he died of liver failure on December 27. Known for his humor, "Wolf", as he was called in the USA, left behind his son Holger and his granddaughter Katrin, called "Fritzi", who live in Berlin. In May 2019 he was there again himself on the occasion of a meeting of the team that had been champions of the city half a century before. "'Sprotte' Sühnholz spoke emotionally about his time at our club," it said.

successes

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ HK.Stolze: Another sad news for the Hertha 03 family: “Sprotte” expiatory wood died at the age of 73. FC Hertha 03 Zehlendorf, January 3, 2020, accessed on January 6, 2020 .
  2. ^ Association: Memories Woke Up Hertha Zehlendorf, May 23, 2019
personal data
SURNAME Atonement wood, Wolfgang
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Atonement wood, sprat (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American soccer player and coach
DATE OF BIRTH September 14, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH December 27, 2019
Place of death Georgetown, Texas