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 Rahn in 1962 | |||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date of birth | (1929-08-16)16 August 1929 | ||||||||||||||||
| Place of birth | Essen,Germany | ||||||||||||||||
| Date of death | 14 August 2003(2003-08-14) (aged 73) | ||||||||||||||||
| Place of death | Essen, Germany | ||||||||||||||||
| Height | 1.78 m (5 ft 10 in) | ||||||||||||||||
| Position | Wing forward | ||||||||||||||||
| Youth career | |||||||||||||||||
| 1938–1946 | SV Altenessen 1912 | ||||||||||||||||
| Senior career* | |||||||||||||||||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) | ||||||||||||||
| 1946–1950 | SC Oelde 1919 | ||||||||||||||||
| 1950–1951 | Sportfreunde Katernberg | 30 | (7) | ||||||||||||||
| 1951–1959 | Rot-Weiss Essen | 280 | (97) | ||||||||||||||
| 1959–1960 | 1. FC Köln | 29 | (11) | ||||||||||||||
| 1960–1963 | SC Enschede | 69 | (39) | ||||||||||||||
| 1963–1965 | Meidericher SV | 19 | (8) | ||||||||||||||
| Total | 427 | (162[1]) | |||||||||||||||
| International career | |||||||||||||||||
| 1951–1960 | West Germany | 40 | (21) | ||||||||||||||
Medal record
| |||||||||||||||||
| * Club domestic league appearances and goals | |||||||||||||||||
Helmut Rahn (16 August 1929 – 14 August 2003), known asDer Boss (The Boss), was a German footballer who played as aforward. He became a legend for having scored the winning goal inthe final of the1954 FIFA World Cup (West Germany vs.Hungary 3–2). Rahn, along with the German team, were decorated by the President of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1972.
Rahn started his career withAltenessen 1912 where he played from 1938 until 1946. Then he went toSCOelde 09 with a total score of 52 goals for that team. In the 1950–51 season, he played forSportfreunde Katernberg.
He was most successful when he played forRot-Weiss Essen from 1951 to 1959. The team won theDFB-Pokal final in 1953 and won theGerman Championship in 1955. For one year, from 1959 till 1960 he had played at1. FC Köln, 1960 he went toSportclub Enschede in the Netherlands.
In theBundesliga 1963 he started playing forMSV Duisburg.[2] He finished his career in 1965 because of a knee problem and, along withHans Schäfer was one of the last members of the 1954 World Cup winning side to retire. His position was that of anoutside right.
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 Germany8–3 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 asThe 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 afterWorld War II.
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Rahn was also part of the German team that reached semifinals at the1958 World Cup. With his goal againstYugoslavia, he became at the time the third maximum scorer in World Cups, with 10 total goals (behindJust Fontaine andSándor Kocsis), 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.[3] He was known as "Der Boss" ("The Boss") because of his on-field leadership and occasionally as "The Cannon from Essen".
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 1,000DM 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 filmThe Miracle of Bern was dedicated to him by directorSönke Wortmann.
In 1953, Rahn married Gerti Seller, and the couple had two sons, Uwe (born 1954) and Klaus Rahn.[4] Rahn is allegedly the cousin of the grandfather ofKevin-Prince Boateng of theGhana national football team.[5]
On 11 July 2004, 50 years after the Bern match, a lifesize statue of Rahn was put up near Georg-Melches-Stadium inEssen, on the square named after him.
| Club | Season | League | German Champ'ship | Total | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Division | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | ||
| Sportfreunde Katernberg | 1950–51 | Oberliga West | 30 | 7 | — | 30 | 7 | |
| Rot-Weiss Essen | 1951–52 | Oberliga West | 29 | 20 | 6 | 5 | 35 | 25 |
| 1952–53 | Oberliga West | 28 | 9 | — | 28 | 9 | ||
| 1953–54 | Oberliga West | 30 | 18 | — | 30 | 18 | ||
| 1954–55 | Oberliga West | 19 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 23 | 6 | |
| 1955–56 | Oberliga West | 24 | 9 | — | 24 | 9 | ||
| 1956–57 | Oberliga West | 21 | 10 | — | 21 | 10 | ||
| 1957–58 | Oberliga West | 27 | 8 | — | 27 | 8 | ||
| 1958–59 | Oberliga West | 23 | 9 | — | 23 | 9 | ||
| Total | 201 | 88 | 10 | 6 | 211 | 94 | ||
| 1. FC Köln | 1959–60 | Oberliga West | 29 | 11 | 7 | 4 | 36 | 15 |
| SC Enschede | 1960–61 | Eredivisie | 27 | 14 | — | 27 | 14 | |
| 1961–62 | Eredivisie | 21 | 12 | — | 21 | 12 | ||
| 1962–63 | Eredivisie | 21 | 13 | — | 21 | 13 | ||
| Total | 69 | 39 | — | 69 | 39 | |||
| Meidericher SV | 1963–64 | Bundesliga | 18 | 8 | — | 18 | 8 | |
| 1964–65 | Bundesliga | 1 | 0 | — | 1 | 0 | ||
| Total | 19 | 8 | — | 19 | 8 | |||
| Career total | 348 | 153 | 17 | 10 | 365 | 163 | ||
| National team | Year | Apps | Goals |
|---|---|---|---|
| Germany | 1951 | 2 | 1 |
| 1952 | 3 | 1 | |
| 1953 | 4 | 1 | |
| 1954 | 6 | 4 | |
| 1955 | 3 | 0 | |
| 1956 | 1 | 0 | |
| 1957 | 3 | 2 | |
| 1958 | 11 | 10 | |
| 1959 | 5 | 1 | |
| 1960 | 2 | 1 | |
| Total | 40 | 21 | |
| No. | Date | Venue | Opponent | Score | Result | Competition | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 23 December 1951 | Georg-Melches-Stadion,Essen, Germany |  Luxembourg | – | 4–1 | Friendly | [6] |
| 2 | 21 December 1952 | Südweststadion,Ludwigshafen, Germany |  Yugoslavia | – | 3–2 | Friendly | [7] |
| 3 | 22 November 1953 | Volksparkstadion,Hamburg, Germany |  Norway | 5–1 | 5–1 | 1954 FIFA World Cup qualification | [8] |
| 4 | 20 June 1954 | St. Jakob Stadium,Basel, Switzerland |  Hungary | 2–7 | 3–8 | 1954 FIFA World Cup | [9] |
| 5 | 27 June 1954 | Charmilles Stadium,Geneva, Switzerland | Yugoslavia | 2–0 | 2–0 | 1954 FIFA World Cup | [10] |
| 6 | 4 July 1954 | Wankdorf Stadium,Bern, Switzerland | Hungary | 2–2 | 3–2 | 1954 FIFA World Cup | [11] |
| 7 | 3–2 | ||||||
| 8 | 10 March 1957 | Praterstadion,Vienna, Austria |  Austria | – | 3–2 | Friendly | [12] |
| 9 | – | ||||||
| 10 | 8 June 1958 | Malmö Stadion,Malmö, Sweden |  Argentina | 1–1 | 3–1 | 1958 FIFA World Cup | [13] |
| 11 | 3–1 | ||||||
| 12 | 11 June 1958 | Olympia,Helsingborg, Sweden |  Czechoslovakia | 2–2 | 2–2 | 1958 FIFA World Cup | [14] |
| 13 | 15 June 1958 | Malmö Stadion, Malmö, Sweden |  Northern Ireland | 1–1 | 2–2 | 1958 FIFA World Cup | [15] |
| 14 | 19 June 1958 | Malmö Stadion, Malmö, Sweden | Yugoslavia | 1–0 | 1–0 | 1958 FIFA World Cup | [16] |
| 15 | 28 June 1958 | Ullevi,Gothenburg, Sweden |  France | 2–4 | 3–6 | 1958 FIFA World Cup | [17] |
| 16 | 24 September 1958 | Idrætsparken,Copenhagen, Denmark |  Denmark | 1–0 | 1–1 | Friendly | [18] |
| 17 | 26 October 1958 | Stade Yves-du-Manoir,Colombes, France | France | 1–0 | 2–2 | Friendly | [19] |
| 18 | 19 November 1958 | Olympiastadion,Berlin, Germany | Austria | – | 2–2 | Friendly | [20] |
| 19 | – | ||||||
| 20 | 4 October 1959 | Wankdorf Stadium, Bern, Switzerland |  Switzerland | – | 4–0 | Friendly | [21] |
| 21 | 27 April 1960 | Südweststadion, Ludwigshafen, Germany |  Portugal | – | 2–1 | Friendly | [22] |
Rot-Weiss Essen
West Germany
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| Preceded by | West Germany captain 1958–1959 | Succeeded by |
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