Horst Hrubesch

Horst Hrubesch (born April 17, 1951 in Hamm) is a retired German football player and currently employed as a youth trainer at the DFB. His nickname was "Das Kopfball-Ungeheuer" (the Header Beast) for his heading skills.

West Germany's match-winning hero in the 1980 UEFA European Championship final against Belgium, Horst Hrubesch scored two goals in Rome, the second of them a trademark bullet header in the 89th minute. It was a day of glorious redemption for the big, bulky Hamburger SV centre-forward who a few weeks earlier had hobbled around the field with an ankle injury as his club lost the European Champion Clubs' Cup final to Nottingham Forest FC. A latecomer to the international scene, Hrubesch had only been called into the West Germany squad after Klaus Fischer broke his leg, and the game against Belgium was only his fifth international appearance. He would win just 21 caps in all, the last of them in the 1982 FIFA World Cup final. A German champion three times, he also won the European Cup with Hamburg in 1983, captaining the team to a sensational 1-0 win against favourites Juventus in the Athens final.

Hrubesch was the typical latebloomer. He played in small clubs until the age of 24 before he was signed by Rot-Weiss Essen. There, he played well enough that Hamburger SV bought him. There, he blossomed into one of the most productive forwards of the Bundesliga and was soon called up for the German national team. Hrubesch was known for his symbiotic relationship with fellow HSV player Manfred Kaltz, a right wingback whose crosses Hrubesch often headed into the goal.

His greatest successes were the win of the European Championship in 1980, where he decided the finals with two of his late "Ungeheuer" header goals, and 1983, where he won the Champions Cup against Juventus Turin. He also was German champion in 1979, 1982 and 1983. He scored 136 goals in 224 games in the Bundesliga and was capped 21 times.

He is also famous for having scored the winning penalty which knocked France out of the 1982 FIFA World Cup semi-finals after an epic game which was tied 3-3 after extra-time.

After his successful player career, Hrubesch became a trainer and has several less successful stints in the Bundesliga before starting as a youth coach in the DFB.

External links

* [http://www.fussballdaten.de/spieler/hrubeschhorst/ Statistics]