Kicker Rankings 1980-1990

Branko Oblak

More good stuff from you, Gregoriak; stuff like this is what brought me here and kept me here. Anyway, based on what I saw of Oblak in Soccer Made in Ger,many telecasts it seemed like he was something of a nonentity. Then again, SMiG seemed to have a way of doing that with some Bundesliga players who turned out to be better than they appeared to be on the show.

 

Wolfgang Frank

Frank transferred to Dortmund in midseason of 1977-78 from Eintracht Brunswick and, I think, became just another in the mix of Dortmund forwards. Nobody that played up front on that club that season had more than 7 goals(that was Erwin Kostedde). Frank himself had, if memory serves correctly, 5 total scores split between Eintracht B. and Borussia D. Burgsmueller had to carry the Dortmund offense with his 20 goals from out of midfield. In 1979-80 Frank had 7 goals. He transferred to Nuernberg after the season.

 

Walter Junghans

 

Kurt Jara

It struck me at the time that Jara, at the time he played for Schalke, was past his prime and that S04 signed him as a desperation measure in their battle against relegation(which failed - in 1981 - ).

 

Franz-Josef Tenhagen

Tenhagen has perhaps my favorite Bundesliga player name. I had the idea at first from Soccer Made in Germany that he was a striker(probably due to his wearing the number 10 shirt which I think of - and did then - as a striker's number). Later on I thought he was a central defender but more recently I've seen, as you have it here, that he was in fact used in midfield(maybe not the best position for him?).

 

Calle Del'Haye

Del'Haye had to me perhaps the most mysterious player name in the Bundesliga. I wonder what accounts for that spelling. Anyway, he was a part of BL history when he scored a pair of goals out of the even dozen put up by Gladbach in that 12:0 humiliation inflicted on Dortmund on the 1977-78 season's final day.

 

Re: Calle Del'Haye

I would have wanted him over Rüdiger Abramczik for WM78 if I only knew he was German back then...

 

Calle Del'Haye - Overshadowed?

I'll take a flying guess here and say that Del'Haye must have been overshadowed by some of his Moenchengladbach teammates like Vogts, Bonhof, Heynckes, Simonsen and Kleff.

 

Kurt Pinkall

Pinkall had a good season in 1980-81 for VfL Bochum with 17 goals; the next year he was gone(to Moenchengladbach which, I think, was a club not known as a big spender by normal Bundesliga standards). He managed 15 goals in his first Gladbach season but both his games played and his goal production dropped after that and in 1986 his profi career ended. It looks like a major injury had an effect here but I don't know.

 

Wolfgang "Teddy" De Beer

RANGLISTE DES DEUTSCHEN FUSSBALLS JULI 1990 / RANKING ORDER OF GERMAN FOOTBALL JULY 1990
Torhüter / Goalies
Internationale Klasse / International Class:
Im weiteren Kreis / Broader Circle:
De Beer (Dortmund)

De Beer was another goalkeeper not made to look too good by Soccer Made in Germany. On one shot he would make a good save only to let in an easy goal on the next shot. That's how he appeared on the show and that's how I thought of him as a result.

 

Ivo Knoflicek

I wonder why Knoflicek is on this list. He was a parttime player and only had 5 total goals in his not very long Bundesliga career.

 

Re: Kicker Rankings 1980-1985

We always played man marking until the mid 90s and the first coach,
who tried to change to zonal defense survived less than a half season

 

Re: Kicker Rankings 1980-1985

That guy is a legend, isn´t he.
Best goalgetter (135 goals in 7 seasons) in Dortmunds history,
won his first BL title with 39 years and started with 46 years an American
football career as kicker of Rhein Fire and was with 52 years the oldest active
American football player world-wide and won two World Bows in 1998 and 2000.

 

Manni Burgsmueller

Burgsmueller was the leading career goalscorer among non-strikers in the Bundesliga and trailed great forwards Gerd Mueller, Klaus Fischer and Jupp Heynckes on the alltime scoring list with 213 league goals in 447 games played. He's probably my alltime favorite BL player.