Wolfram Wuttke (17 November 1961 – 1 March 2015) was a German professional

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 ...

who played as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

Club career

Wuttke made his

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 footba ...

debut in October 1979 for

Schalke 04 Fußballclub Gelsenkirchen-Schalke 04 e. V., commonly known as FC Schalke 04 (), Schalke 04 (), or abbreviated as S04 (), is a professional German football and multi-sports club originally from the Schalke district of Gelsenkirchen, North Rhine ...

in a 3–0 win against

Werder Bremen Sportverein Werder Bremen von 1899 e. V. (), commonly known as Werder Bremen (), Werder or simply Bremen, is a German professional sports club based in Bremen, Free Hanseatic City of Bremen. Founded on 4 February 1899, they are best known for the ...

. From 1981 to 1982, he played one and a half seasons for Borussia Mönchengladbach before returning to Schalke. In summer 1983, he moved to

Hamburger SV Hamburger Sport-Verein e.V. (), commonly known as Hamburger SV () or Hamburg (), is a German sports club based in Hamburg, with its largest branch being its football section. Though the current HSV was founded in June 1919 from a merger of three ...

. Günther Netzer, then Hamburg's sporting director, called him one of the greatest German football talents of all times. After several disputes,

Ernst Happel Ernst Franz Hermann Happel (29 November 1925 – 14 November 1992) was an Austrian football player and manager. Happel is regarded as one of the greatest managers of all time, winning both league and domestic cup titles in the Netherlands, Belg ...

, Hamburg's manager, threw him out of the team in September 1985. After that, he played nearly four seasons for

1. FC Kaiserslautern 1. Fußball-Club Kaiserslautern e. V., also known as 1. FCK, FCK (), FC Kaiserslautern () or colloquially Lautern (), is a German sports club based in Kaiserslautern, Rhineland-Palatinate. In addition to football, the club also operates in sev ...

. Kaiserslautern canceled his contract in 1990 due to "unprofessional behaviour" and so he joined

RCD Espanyol Reial Club Deportiu Espanyol de Barcelona (; "Royal Spanish Sports Club of Barcelona"), commonly known as Espanyol, is a professional sports club based in Barcelona, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top tier of the Spanish football league s ...

. In 1992, he returned to the Bundesliga and played for

1. FC Saarbrücken 1. FC Saarbrücken (german: 1. Fußball-Club Saarbrücken e. V.) is a football club based in Saarbrücken, Saarland. The club plays in the 3. Liga, which is the third tier of football in Germany. The club began its existence as the football de ...

but he had to end his career at the age of 31 due to a fracture of the shoulder. He appeared in nearly 300 (West) German top-flight matches.

International career

His good performance in the Bundesliga earned him four caps in the West Germany national team and he was part of West Germany's squad at the

UEFA Euro 1988 The 1988 UEFA European Football Championship final tournament was held in West Germany from 10 to 25 June 1988. It was the eighth UEFA European Championship, which is held every four years and supported by UEFA. The tournament crowned the Nethe ...

and the West German team that won the bronze medal at the

1988 Summer Olympics The 1988 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XXIV Olympiad () and commonly known as Seoul 1988 ( ko, 서울 1988, Seoul Cheon gubaek palsip-pal), was an international multi-sport event held from 17 September to 2 October ...

Death

On 1 March 2015, he died due to a

multisystem organ failure Multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) is altered organ function in an acutely ill patient requiring medical intervention to achieve homeostasis. Although Irwin and Rippe cautioned in 2005 that the use of "multiple organ failure" or "multisy ...

caused by

cirrhosis Cirrhosis, also known as liver cirrhosis or hepatic cirrhosis, and end-stage liver disease, is the impaired liver function caused by the formation of scar tissue known as fibrosis due to damage caused by liver disease. Damage causes tissue rep ...

Honours

1. FC Kaiserslautern *

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 ...

: 1989–90 Germany U21 * UEFA Under-21 Championship: runner-up 1982 * Olympics: Bronze Medal 1988

References

External links

* * * * 1961 births 2015 deaths People from Castrop-Rauxel Sportspeople from Münster (region) German footballers German expatriate footballers German expatriate sportspeople in Spain Expatriate footballers in Spain Association football midfielders Germany under-21 international footballers Germany international footballers FC Schalke 04 players Borussia Mönchengladbach players Hamburger SV players 1. FC Kaiserslautern players RCD Espanyol footballers 1. FC Saarbrücken players Bundesliga players La Liga players Segunda División players UEFA Euro 1988 players Olympic footballers of West Germany Olympic bronze medalists for West Germany Footballers at the 1988 Summer Olympics Olympic medalists in football Alcohol-related deaths in Germany Medalists at the 1988 Summer Olympics Footballers from North Rhine-Westphalia {{Germany-Olympic-medalist-stub