East Germany 1961-1967 “Soós-Era”
COACH:
Károly SOÓS
GOALKEEPERS:
Wolfgang BLOCHWITZ
Karl-Heinz SPICKENAGEL
Jürgen HEINSCH
DEFENDERS:
Otto FRÄSSDORF
Klaus URBANCZYK
Manfred WALTER
Bernd BRANSCH
Peter ROCK
Manfred GEISLER
Werner UNGER
MIDFIELDERS:
Manfred KAISER
Herbert PANKAU
Günter SCHRÖTER
Dieter ERLER
Jürgen NÖLDNER
Kurt LIEBRECHT
Gerhard KÖRNER
ATTACKERS:
Hermann STÖCKER
Peter DUCKE
Henning FRENZEL
Roland DUCKE
Eberhard VOGEL
Rainer NACHTIGALL
INFO:
When Karoly Soos began his job as coach of the East German NT in 1961 he soon recognized that it would be a tough job. The team hadn't qualified for any tournament yet and didn't play well too, mainly because great technicians like Manfred Kaiser or Günter Schröter were kicked out of the NT because they were too old (opinion of previous NT coach Heinz Krügel).
Soos started to reinvite these players to the national team and also new young players like Peter Ducke, Eberhard Vogel or Dieter Erler debuted in the NT. With a combination of youngsters & old but still good footballers the East German NT soon began to play very good football. In 1964 the team even managed to qualify for the 1964 Summer Olympics where they won a bronze medal. Except that the team failed to qualify for other major tournaments. For the 1964 EC they also had good chances to qualify but in the decisive qualification match a stupid Yugo referee did everything to secure the Hungarian qualification and he had success (this referee was later suspended for that). Mainly because of lacking success and because of the failed qualification for EC 1968 Soos left the NT at the end of 1967. But with no doubt "his" East German NT was the team who played the best and most attractive football, definitely better than the more succesful generation of the 1970's.