German football mourns Jürgen Grabowski. The 1974 world champion died on Thursday evening at the age of 77. This was announced by his long-standing club Eintracht Frankfurt on Friday.
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 playing 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.”
Grabowski almost ended up at Bayern Munich
The club anthem, which contains the won cup finals in 1974 and 1975, also bears witness to this. In the last video recorded, Grabowski, who scored 109 goals in 441 games for Frankfurt between 1965 and 1980, was even part of the game – even if his imitation of an electric guitarist was not particularly believable.
Grabowski’s rise to club icon in 1972 was hanging by a thread. Bayern Munich wanted to commit the playmaker at the time – but the offer was not enough for the Frankfurt club management.
Grabowski has never regretted the missed change. why? “Grabi” enjoyed the status of a legend at Eintracht. The club held a big party for his 70th birthday.
The big festivals on the square ended 42 years ago. On March 15, 1980, Grabowski suffered such a severe injury in a duel with Lothar Matthäus in a game against Borussia Mönchengladbach that he had to end his career. Born in Wiesbaden, he only saw Frankfurt’s UEFA Cup victory shortly afterwards as a spectator.
Grabowski as a scapegoat for bankruptcy against GDR
It had been different for Grabowski six years earlier. Although the two-time DFB Cup winner was made the scapegoat for the 0-1 draw against East Germany in the preliminary round of the World Cup, he played in the national team’s final victory against the Netherlands (2-1) in Munich. “He was the Mister Spielmacher of the DFB”, Rainer Koch praised him in his function as DFB interim president at the Bundestag in Bonn.
After the final, Grabowski ended his career in the German jersey. After just 44 caps and five goals, he left in anger. Grabowski couldn’t get over the fact that he was blamed for the GDR bankruptcy and had been kicked out of the squad in the meantime.
In addition, he always had to play in the right midfield in the German selection because there was no space for him in the center. That rankled Grabowski so much that he turned down the comeback offer as a playmaker for the 1978 World Cup.
Grabowski, who came to Eintracht from SV Biebrich in 1965, never had to deal with such problems in Frankfurt. The midfield strategist played for Hessen for 15 years, including eleven years as captain. Now the captain is gone.
