Werner Liebrich (18 January 1927 – 20 March 1995) was a German

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who played in the

centre back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...

position. He is notable for his role in the

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 O ...

triumph in 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. Switzerla ...

, and spending his entire playing career of almost twenty years with hometown club 1. FC Kaiserslautern, with whom he also briefly coached.

Early life

Liebrich was brought up in

Kaiserslautern Kaiserslautern (; Palatinate German: ''Lautre'') is a city in southwest Germany, located in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate at the edge of the Palatinate Forest. The historic centre dates to the 9th century. It is from Paris, from Frankfur ...

to a worker's family who were members of the Social Democratic German party

SPD The Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, ; SPD, ) is a centre-left social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been the ...

Career

At club level, Liebrich played solely for 1. FC Kaiserslautern, and breaking into the first team in the 1940s. He was in the 1950s part of the team that won the German championship in the

1951 Events January * January 4 – Korean War: Third Battle of Seoul – Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul for the second time (having lost the Second Battle of Seoul in September 1950). * January 9 – The Government of the United ...

and

1953 Events January * January 6 – The Asian Socialist Conference opens in Rangoon, Burma. * January 12 – Estonian émigrés found a Estonian government-in-exile, government-in-exile in Oslo. * January 14 ** Marshal Josip Broz Tito i ...

seasons. He appeared sixteen times for the West Germany national team, and was a member of the West Germany team that won the

, in which he played 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 ...

. He was the player who injured Hungarian team captain

Ferenc Puskás Ferenc Puskás (, ; born Ferenc Purczeld; 1 April 1927 – 17 November 2006) was a Hungarian football player and manager, widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time and the sport's first international superstar. A forward, ...

during the two teams' first game in the tournament in the group stage. Puskás was forced to miss the next two matches in the tournament, but played in the final against Germany, not wholly fit, in which the Germans won 3–2, Hungary's first defeat in four years. In 1950,

A.C. Milan Associazione Calcio Milan (), commonly referred to as AC Milan or simply Milan, is a professional Association football, football club in Milan, Italy, founded in 1899. The club has spent its entire history, with the exception of the 1980–81 ...

offered him a contract which he declined to stay at his hometown club. Apart from winning the German championship with Kaiserslautern in 1951 and 1953, the pinnacle of Liebrich's career were his defensive performances during the 1954 FIFA World Cup, especially in the quarter final against

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

. After the 1954 World Cup, one of his best performances came in the game against

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

Wembley Wembley () is a large suburbIn British English, "suburb" often refers to the secondary urban centres of a city. Wembley is not a suburb in the American sense, i.e. a single-family residential area outside of the city itself. in north-west Londo ...

on 1 December 1954. He effectively marked English

centre forward 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 ...

Ronnie Allen Ronald Allen (15 January 1929 – 9 June 2001) was an English international football player and manager. He was a professional footballer for nineteen years, between 1946 and 1964, making 638 appearances in the Football League, and scoring 27 ...

and also helped out covering

Stanley Matthews Sir Stanley Matthews, CBE (1 February 1915 – 23 February 2000) was an English footballer who played as an outside right. Often regarded as one of the greatest players of the British game, he is the only player to have been knighted while stil ...

. Liebrich retired from playing in 1962, after nearly twenty years with his hometown club; however he came back for a coaching stint in the 1964–65 season and was celebrated as saving his club from relegation.

Death

In March 1995, Liebrich died of

heart failure Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome, a group of signs and symptoms caused by an impairment of the heart's blood pumping function. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, a ...

aged 68, in Kaiserslautern.

References

External links

* * * 1927 births 1995 deaths People from Kaiserslautern People from the Palatinate (region) German footballers Footballers from Rhineland-Palatinate Germany international footballers 1954 FIFA World Cup players FIFA World Cup-winning players 1. FC Kaiserslautern players German football managers 1. FC Kaiserslautern managers Association football defenders {{Germany-footy-defender-1920s-stub