Herbert Wimmer

Herbert "Hacki" Wimmer (born 9 November 1944 in Eupen, Belgium) is a 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.

Herbert Wimmer
Wimmer in 1972
Personal information
Date of birth (1944-11-09) 9 November 1944
Place of birth Eupen, Belgium
Height 1.79 m (5 ft 10 1⁄2 in)
Playing 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)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only

Herbert 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 1978), the German Cup in 1973, and the UEFA Cup in 1975.

He 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. He 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 Wimmer 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 German national football team, where he scored four goals. With Germany he won the 1972 European Football Championship – there 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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