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German football mourns Jürgen Grabowski. The 1974 world champion died on Thursday evening at the age of 77. Jürgen Grabowski was on everyone's lips until the very end - and the 1974 soccer world champion will still be after his death. When the thrash metal band Tankard plays the club anthem "Schwarz-weiß wie Schnee" in the arena before the Eintracht Frankfurt games, the fans will continue to fervently sing the lyrics with Grabowski's name, even if he died on Thursday evening in the died at the age of 77.
No wonder. After all, the lines are a homage to the idol of the Bundesliga club, who is still recognized by many as "the best player in Hesse of all time". "We saw Eintracht in the final. With Jürgen, with Jürgen," says the song about Frankfurt's honorary captain: "She played so well and she played so beautifully – with Jürgen Grabowski!"
Grabowski, who has had health problems in recent years and has had to have dialysis regularly, will no longer hear the lines. "Full of gratitude and respect, Eintracht Frankfurt bows to one of the greatest players who have ever played this game. All sympathy goes to his wife Helga and the family," said the club on Friday.
"It is incomprehensible to all of us that Jürgen Grabowski passed away,"
said club president
Peter Fischer, deeply affected. Board spokesman Axel Hellmann also mourned Grabowski.
"During his active days, Jürgen Grabowski was perhaps the most perfect player who played for Eintracht," said Hellmann: "His aura still has an effect today. Grabi, who loved being at our Eintracht games, was a generation-spanning identity for the club."
💬 #DankeGrabi pic.twitter.com/Qfqib9SlDJ
— Eintracht Frankfurt (@Eintracht) March 11, 2022
Grabowski played 44 international matches for the DFB and 441 matches in the Bundesliga for Eintracht, was world and European champion, UEFA Cup winner in 1980 and 1974 and 1975 DFB Cup winner.
Overath: "He could do everything with the ball"
In Frankfurt Grabowski was the playmaker, in the national team he mostly acted as a right winger because of his competitors Wolfgang Overath and Günter Netzer. "For me, he was one of the greatest artists we had at Eintracht - if not the greatest," says Bundesliga record player Karl-Heinz Körbel once.
For Overath he was "a very fine person, a great boy. He could do everything with the ball." Together with his club colleague Bernd Hölzenbein, Grabowski was part of the 1974 world champion team.
On his 30th birthday, Grabowski initiated the 2-1 victory in the World Cup final in Munich: pass to Rainer Bonhof, cross, goal and Gerd Müller's jump. On that July 7, 1974, Grabowski thought, "The world is yours." He was thrown out of the team after the embarrassing 1-0 draw against East Germany, which hit him deeply.
As a substitute, however, he then managed the decisive 3:2 against Sweden - and he was back in the first eleven. "I owe everything to this game," he kept saying. 40,000 at the farewell game, after winning the World Cup, Grabowski resigned from the national team, but he continued to trump at Eintracht. From 1965 to 1980 he played for Hessen, previously only in Biebrich.
When he won the UEFA Cup in 1980, Grabowski lifted the heavy cup in civilian clothes. Bernd Hölzenbein was the first to present it to his fellow world champion and friend. A foul by Lothar Matthäus and a serious foot injury had just ended Grabowski's famous career.
More than 40,000 fans attended his farewell match between Eintracht and the 1974 World Cup team in what was then the Waldstadion.