Helmut Rahn (16 August 1929 – 14 August 2003), known as ''Der Boss'' (The Boss), was a German footballer who played as a
forward. He became a legend for having scored the winning goal in
the final
Final, Finals or The Final may refer to:
*Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event
** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...
of the
1954 FIFA World Cup
The 1954 FIFA World Cup was the fifth edition of the FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football tournament for senior men's national teams of the nations affiliated to FIFA. It was held in Switzerland from 16 June to 4 July. Switzer ...
(
West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 ...
vs.
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Cr ...
3–2). Rahn, along with the German team, were decorated by the President of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1972.
Career
Rahn started his career with ''Altenessen 1912'' where he played from 1938 until 1946. Then he went to ''SC
Oelde
Oelde () is a town in the district of Warendorf, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located near Beckum.
Geography
Division of the town
Oelde consists of 5 districts:
* Oelde
* Stromberg
* Lette
* Sünninghausen
* Kirchspiel (with far ...
09'' with a total score of 52 goals for that team. In the 1950–51 season, he played for ''Sportfreunde Katernberg''.
He was most successful when he played for
Rot-Weiss Essen
Rot-Weiss Essen is a German association football club based in Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia. The club currently plays in the 3. Liga, at the Stadion an der Hafenstraße.
The team won the DFB-Pokal in 1953, and the German championship in 195 ...
from 1951–1959. The team won the
DFB-Pokal
The DFB-Pokal ( is a German knockout football cup competition held annually by the German Football Association (DFB). Sixty-four teams participate in the competition, including all clubs from the Bundesliga and the 2. Bundesliga. It is considered ...
final in 1953 and won the
German Championship in 1955. For one year, from 1959 till 1960 he had played at
1. FC Köln
1. Fußball-Club Köln 01/07 e. V., commonly known as simply FC Köln () or FC Cologne in English, is a German professional football club based in Cologne in North Rhine-Westphalia. It was formed in 1948 as a merger of the clubs ''Kölner Ball ...
, 1960 he went to
Sportclub Enschede in the Netherlands.
In the
Bundesliga
The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germany's primary footb ...
1963 he started playing for
MSV Duisburg.
He finished his career in 1965 because of a knee problem and, along with
Hans Schäfer
Hans Schäfer (19 October 1927 – 7 November 2017) was a German footballer who played as an outside left.
Career
Schäfer was born in Zollstock, Cologne. He played for 1. FC Köln between 1948 and 1965, and for the West Germany national team, e ...
was one of the last members of the 1954 World Cup winning side to retire. His position was that of an
outside right
Forwards (also known as attackers) are outfield positions in an association football team who play the furthest up the pitch and are therefore most responsible for scoring goals as well as assisting them. As with any attacking player, the role ...
.
His legendary status in German football was sparked by the heroic achievement of the German team in the final of the 1954 World Cup.
Germany, whose team members themselves were surprised to be in the final, was playing Hungary, who hadn't lost a single match for four years running up to the World Cup final, and had already beaten Germany
8–3 in the group stage earlier in the tournament. Germany lagged behind 0–2 after only eight minutes, but then pulled it back to 2–2 with Rahn assisting the first German goal and scoring the second. With six minutes remaining, Rahn received the ball just outside the penalty box before going past a Hungarian player and managing to shoot at the lower left corner with his weaker left foot just before being tackled. The ball whistled into the back of the net and Germany went on to win the game 3–2 over the apparently unbeatable Hungarian team. This match is known in Germany as
The Miracle of Bern (''Das Wunder von Bern'') because of its "David versus Goliath"-like setting, and it is generally seen as an instrumental part of the rebuilding of the German people's morale after the
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
.
Rahn was also part of the German team that reached semifinals at the
1958 World Cup
The 1958 FIFA World Cup was the sixth FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams, and was played in Sweden from 8 to 29 June 1958. It was the first FIFA World Cup to be played in a Nordic country.
Brazil be ...
. With his goal against
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label= Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavij ...
, he became at the time the third maximum scorer in World Cups, with 10 total goals (behind
Just Fontaine
Just Louis Fontaine (born 18 August 1933) is a French former professional footballer. A prolific forward, he is best known for scoring the most goals in a single edition of the FIFA World Cup, with thirteen in six matches in 1958. In 2004, Pel ...
and
Sándor Kocsis
Sándor Péter Kocsis (; ; 21 September 1929 – 22 July 1979) was a Hungarian footballer who played for Ferencváros TC, Budapest Honvéd, Young Fellows Zürich, FC Barcelona and Hungary as a striker. During the 1950s, along with Ferenc Pu ...
), and also the first player ever to score at least four goals in two different World Cups.
Rahn played 40 international matches and scored a total of 21 goals.
He was known as "Der Boss" ("The Boss") because of his on-field leadership and occasionally as "The Cannon from Essen".
Later life
After retiring from football, Rahn started his own car dealership in Essen-Altenessen, along Altenessener Street. He was known for his good sense of humour and his joy and ability at talking with others. Many stories about him still circulate throughout Essen. One such story involves a discussion he once had with a friend regarding his car dealership:
Rahn was once asked by a friend, how his car dealership worked. His very direct answer: "I buy a car for 1,000
DM and sell it for 4,000 DM. And I live off the three percent profit."
He died two days shy of his 74th birthday, in Essen. The film ''
The Miracle of Bern'' was dedicated to him by director
Sönke Wortmann
Sönke Wortmann (; 25 August 1959 in Marl, North Rhine-Westphalia) is a German film director and producer.
Biography
Wortmann's father was a miner. After Wortmann's A-Levels he wanted to become a professional football player and started playin ...
.
Family
In 1953, Rahn married Gerti Seller, and the couple had two sons, Uwe (born 1954) and Klaus Rahn. Rahn is allegedly the cousin of the grandfather of
Kevin-Prince Boateng of the
Ghana national football team
The Ghana national football team represents Ghana in men's international Association football, football, doing it since 1957. The team consists of twenty players including the technical team. The team is nicknamed the Black Stars after the Bl ...
.
Helmut Rahn Memorial
On 11 July 2004, 50 years after the Bern match, a lifesize statue of Rahn was put up near Georg-Melches-Stadium in
Essen
Essen (; Latin: ''Assindia'') is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and Do ...
, on the square named after him.
Career statistics
Club
International
Honours
Club
Rot-Weiss Essen
*
DFB-Pokal
The DFB-Pokal ( is a German knockout football cup competition held annually by the German Football Association (DFB). Sixty-four teams participate in the competition, including all clubs from the Bundesliga and the 2. Bundesliga. It is considered ...
:
1952–53
*
German football championship
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
:
1955
Events January
* January 3 – José Ramón Guizado becomes president of Panama.
* January 17 – , the first nuclear-powered submarine, puts to sea for the first time, from Groton, Connecticut.
* January 18– 20 – Battle of Yijian ...
International
West Germany
*
FIFA World Cup
The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament has ...
:
1954
Events
January
* January 1 – The Soviet Union ceases to demand war reparations from West Germany.
* January 3 – The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting.
* January 7 – Georgetown-IBM experiment: The fir ...
Individual
*
FIFA World Cup All-Star Team: 1954
*
FIFA World Cup Silver Boot: 1958
*
Ballon d'Or
The Ballon d'Or (; ) is an annual football award presented by French news magazine '' France Football'' since 1956. Between 2010 and 2015, in an agreement with FIFA, the award was temporarily merged with the FIFA World Player of the Year (f ...
runner-up: 1958
Books
* Helmut Rahn: ''Mein Hobby: Tore schießen.'' 1959,
References
External links
*
*
*
Helmut Rahn – The TelegraphHelmut Rahn – Miracle Men – The Guardian(in German)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rahn, Helmut
1929 births
2003 deaths
Footballers from Essen
German footballers
German expatriate footballers
Expatriate footballers in the Netherlands
Germany international footballers
Germany B international footballers
1954 FIFA World Cup players
Recipients of the Silver Laurel Leaf
1958 FIFA World Cup players
FIFA World Cup-winning players
1. FC Köln players
Sportclub Enschede players
MSV Duisburg players
Rot-Weiss Essen players
Bundesliga players
Association football forwards
Automobile salespeople
German expatriate sportspeople in the Netherlands