Wolfram lion

Wolfram lion
Wolfram Löwe (1974)
Personnel
birthday	May 14, 1945
place of birth	Markranstädt ,  Germany
size	174 cm
position	striker
Juniors
Years	station
1955-1962	BSG Motor / Turbine Markranstädt
1962-1964	SC Rotation / SC Leipzig
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1964-1980	SC / 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig	351 (108)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1963	GDR U-18	1 0(0)
1965-1968	DDR U-23	7 0(1)
1967-1976	DDR Olympia	11 0(2)
1967-1977	GDR B	2 0(0)
1967-1977	GDR	43 (12)
1 Only league games are given.

Wolfram Löwe (born May 14, 1945 in Markranstädt ) is a former German football player. In the top division of GDR football , the East German league, he played for 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig and its predecessor clubs . With the 1. FC Lok he won the GDR soccer cup in 1976 . Löwe is 43 times national player and won the gold medal with the GDR Olympic selection in 1976.

Athletic career

Youth player

Löwe, whose father had also played soccer, started his soccer career at the age of nine in his hometown with the company sports association (BSG) Motor Markranstädt . There he was initially trained by Georg Glöckner, the father of the later FIFA referee Rudi Glöckner . As a junior player, Wolfram Löwe drew attention to himself as a successful striker. In a game between the junior teams from Turbine Markranstädt and the upper division club SC Lok Leipzig, he scored four goals for the 4-1 victory for the Markranstädter. As a junior player, he moved to the second Leipzig league club in 1962, the SC Rotation Leipzig . In 1963 he was one of the players in the realignment of the Leipziger football as the future top club provided SC Leipzig assigned.

Club player

In the first league season of SC Leipzig 1963/64 Löwe came to his first appearances in the league. He made his debut on October 27, 1963, the 8th matchday. In the home game against Lok Stendal, he scored both goals as a newcomer in the position of right winger for a 2-1 victory. Until the 13th matchday, Löwe was used in four other league games, always on the right attacking side. In the 1964/65 season, the 19-year-old still had difficulty adjusting and only played five times in the league team. “Wool”, as his teammates called him, made his breakthrough in 1965/66 when he became a regular player with 20 league appearances. Leo held this status until the end of his active career. However, it took until 1967 until the 1.74 m tall lion had found his home position as a left winger. This paid off for the lightning-fast attacker, who was able to sprint the 100 meters in eleven seconds, because in the season 1967/68 he was the top scorer of his team and the second best in the top division scorer with 13 goals.

Apart from two third and one second place in the league as well as a lost cup final (1964, without a lion), the predetermined top club, which in 1966 had changed to 1. FC Lokomotive after a further restructuring, the formation of the football clubs, had none until 1969 real success achieved. The 1968/69 season was the provisional low point for 1. FC Lok, as bottom of the table he had to relegate from the league. For Löwe, who had played all 26 point games in the relegation season, but was jointly responsible for the misery with only two goals, relegation was a particular problem as he had meanwhile become a national player. This status was in danger in the second division, but the national team coaches Seeger and Buschner stuck to their striker, so that Löwe also played four international matches as a player in the second division GDR league . Lok Leipzig managed to get promoted again immediately, and Löwe played a significant part in this with 30 stakes in the game and 21 goals with which he was top scorer in the GDR league.

In 1970, the Leipzig team also managed the surprise when they reached the final of the GDR soccer cup as a second division team . This time Löwe was in the final team, but could not prevent the 2: 4 defeat against FC Vorwärts Berlin despite his goal to 1: 3. Löwe also played a decisive role in participating in the final, as he had played in all five previous cup games and scored four goals. Three years later, Löwe had another successful cup season, this time in the competition for the 1973/74 UEFA Cup . The Leipzig team advanced to the semi-finals and only had to bow to the English representative Tottenham Hotspur there (1: 2, 0: 2). Löwe played all ten UEFA Cup matches and scored four goals. After three unsuccessful attempts - in 1964, 1970 and 1973, where Löwe missed the first and last of these Leipzig finals in the final - Löwe finally won the GDR soccer cup in 1976. On May 1, 1976, he played the final against FC Vorwärts Frankfurt / Oder , which Leipzig won 3-0. This cup win remained Löwe's only national title.

In the league season 1975/76, Löwe was again the most successful shooter of the Lok team with eight goals, but from now on was not tied to the left wing position, but was used variably in all attacking positions. 1979/80 Lion completed his last league season. Mainly used as a striker on the right side, he was used again in 25 of the 26 league games played despite his 34 years. His last league game took place on May 10, 1980. In the game between FC Carl Zeiss Jena and 1. FC Lok (1: 1) he was on the pitch for 71 minutes. In his 17 league years, Löwe played 321 league point games in which he scored 87 goals. Added to this are the 30 second division games in 1969/70 (21 goals), 52 national and 30 European cup games (26 and 11 goals respectively).

Selection player

As a junior player at SC Leipzig, Löwe was appointed to the squad of the GDR junior national team at the beginning of 1963 , with which he played a U-18 international match. Between 1965 and 1968, Löwe was used in seven international matches for the youth national team .

From 1967 he was part of the squad of the senior team and played his first international match for the senior team on May 17, 1967. In the 1-0 win in Sweden he played as a left winger as usual. After that, he quickly gained a foothold in the national team. 1973 and 1974 were the most successful of his international career. He played all of the 1973 World Cup qualifiers and was nominated for the 1974 World Cup in Germany. There, Löwe completed four of the six world championship games, but was missing the memorable 1-0 victory of the GDR selection over the DFB team. Löwe played his last and 43rd A international match ( according to FIFA reading No. 40) on October 12, 1977 in the World Cup qualifier GDR - Austria. With his 1-1 equalizer he saved the draw with his 12th selection goal.

Between 1967 and 1976 Löwe was part of the GDR's soccer team . In the failed qualification for the 1968 Olympic Games, Lion played four of the six qualifying games. In 1971 he only completed one qualifying game, then had to pause because of an archilles tendon injury and thus also missed winning the bronze medal in Munich in 1972. In contrast, he was in all the finals of the 1976 Olympic tournament in Canada and was part of the right attacker on July 31, 1976 in the final team, which won the gold medal with a 3-1 victory over Poland. For this success he was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit in silver. In total, Löwe played eleven official international games with the GDR Olympic team.

Professional career

In the 1980s, Löwe worked as a trainer in the junior division at 1. FC Lok Leipzig. During his active time he had completed an engineering degree for vehicle technology and later worked in this area at the Reichsbahn and, after 1990, at the Bundesbahn. From 1996 to 1998, Löwe was employed as a special representative at the Sparkassenvereinigung Sachsen, the main sponsor of VfB Leipzig, the successor club to 1. FC Lok. Most recently, Löwe worked at the Delitzsch district works.

successes

• Olympic champion 1976
• GDR soccer cup 1976
• 1974 UEFA Cup semi-finalist
• GDR runner-up in 1967
• Promotion to the league in 1970

literature

• Andreas Baingo , Michael Hohlfeld: Soccer selection player of the GDR. The lexicon . Sportverlag Berlin , Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-328-00875-6 , page 104.
• Andreas Baingo , Michael Horn: The History of the GDR Oberliga. Verlag Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-89533-428-6 .
• Michael Horn, Gottfried Weise : Lexicon of GDR football . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-89602-536-8 .
• Munzinger Archive : International Sports Archive . Loose-leaf edition 49 (2004), ISSN  0934-9707
• Hanns Leske : Encyclopedia of GDR football . Verlag Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-89533-556-3 .
• Uwe Nuttelmann (Ed.): GDR Oberliga. 1962-1991. Self-published, Jade 2007, ISBN 978-3-930814-33-6 .

Web links

Commons : Wolfram Löwe  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Wolfram Löwe in the database of weltfussball.de
• Wolfram Löwe in the database of fussballdaten.de
• Wolfram lion in the database of transfermarkt.de
• Wolfram Löwe in the database of the German Football Association
• Wolfram Löwe in the database of National-Football-Teams.com (English)
• Wolfram Löwe in the database of EU-Football.info (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Matthias Arnhold: Wolfram Löwe - Matches and Goals in Oberliga . RSSSF.com . April 30, 2015. Accessed January 21, 2020.
2. ^ Matthias Arnhold: Wolfram Löwe - Goals in International Matches . RSSSF.com . April 30, 2015. Accessed January 21, 2020.
3. ↑ About the honor for the Olympic team of the GDR. Awarded high government awards. Patriotic Order of Merit in silver. In: New Germany . September 10, 1976, p. 4 , accessed on April 10, 2018 (online at ZEFYS - newspaper portal of the Berlin State Library , free registration required).