Sepp Herberger

Josef “Sepp” Herberger (March 28th 1897, Mannheim - April 28th 1977, Weinheim, Germany), trainer of the team of Germany of football of 1936 with 1942 and of 1949 with 1964.

Although he was not the first trainer of the national team, he counts among his founders. He is also the craftsman of the first German successes, especially of the victory surprised in 1954 vis-a-vis the Hungary, said the “miracle of Bern”. This success was regarded in Germany as one of the key moments of the identity revival, which helped to forge the myth.

It took the reins of the national team after the failure at the time of the Olympic Games of summer of 1936, and began a long-term building work. Besides its passive position vis-a-vis the Nazisme posed some problems to him after the Second world war. It was presented, thereafter, by its players like apolitical, the policy and the requirements of the party were learnedly ignored at the time of the camps of drive. (But its telegrams of the time were signed by “Heil Hitler”.)

Its work of “construction of the ideal team” (with her death, it left a whole library of notes) bore her fruits in 1954, when “its” team, centered on players like Fritz Walter or Helmut Rahn, was crowned world champion. Following this title, he pains to renovate manpower, strongly holding with his old high-speed motorboats. But its victory founded a paternalist image and had definitively assigned it at this station, in spite of disappointments which followed. It was replaced by Helmut Schön that ten years later. (Schön will remain until in 1978, Germany having known only two trainers during more than 40 years!)

It remains in the history of German football like the first large trainer, and is definitively stuck to the revival of the Années 1950. Also, some basic sentences of the German vocabulary footballistic are allotted to him, such “DER Ball STI rund und ein Spiel dauert 90 Minuten.” ( the ball is round and a hard part 90 minutes. ), “DER schwerste Gegner STI immer der Nächste. ” ( the hardest adversary is always the next one. ) or “Nach dem Spiel STI VOR dem Spiel. ” ( After the match, it is before the match. )

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