Herbert Wimmer

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Herbert Wimmer
Herbert Wimmer 1972.jpg
Wimmer in 1972
Personal information
Date of birth (1944-11-09) 9 November 1944 (age 76)
Place of birth Eupen, Belgium
Height 1.79 m (5 ft 10+1⁄2 in)
Position(s) Midfielder
Youth career
Borussia Brand
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1966–1978 Borussia Mönchengladbach 366 (51)
National team
1968–1976 West Germany 36 (4)
Honours
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only

Herbert "Hacki" Wimmer (born 9 November 1944 is a German former footballer who played as a midfielder. Besides winning five national championships and two UEFA Cups with his club side Borussia Mönchengladbach, he won the 1974 World Cup and the UEFA Euro 1972 with Germany.

Wimmer started his playing career with lowly Borussia Brand (a place close to the city of Aachen). Between 1966 and 1978, he played in 366 Bundesliga matches for Borussia Mönchengladbach and scored 51 goals.[1] With the club, he won five national championships (in 1970, 1971, 1975, 1976, and 1977), the German Cup in 1973, and the UEFA Cup in 1975.

Wimmer started out as a forward, but in Mönchengladbach, his role was primarily to cover defensively for the star of the team in this era, midfield playmaker Günter Netzer. His physical endurance, which earned him the nickname the Iron Lung, was one of his major assets. Wimmer was considered as a paragon of a player that never runs out of steam. As such, Jonathan Wilson, when writing for The Guardian in 2013, described him as a "destroyer," which is a type of holding midfielder whose role is mainly to help win back possession and distribute the ball to other players.[2]

Between 1968 and 1976, Wimmer also played in 36 matches for the Germany national team, where he scored four goals. With Germany, he won the 1972 European Football Championship – he scored the second goal in the 3–0 win in the final against the USSR – and the 1974 FIFA World Cup, where he took part in two matches.

Honours[]

Club[]

Borussia Mönchengladbach

International[]

West Germany

Individual[]

  • UEFA European Championship Team of the Tournament: 1972
  • kicker Bundesliga Team of the Season: 1975–76[3]

References[]

  1. ^ "Herbert Wimmer" (in German). fussballdaten.de. Retrieved 12 February 2010.
  2. ^ Wilson, Jonathan (18 December 2013). "The Question: what does the changing role of holding midfielders tell us?". The Guardian. Retrieved 31 October 2014.
  3. ^ "Bundesliga Historie 1975/76" (in German). kicker.
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