Wikipedia

Fritz Szepan

Friedrich "Fritz" Szepan (2 September 1907 – 14 December 1974) was a German footballer in the period leading up to and including World War II. He spent his entire career with Schalke 04 where he won six national championships and one German Cup. He is commonly regarded as one of the greatest Schalke players of all time.[citation needed] To celebrate the 100th birthday of the club, the supporters voted the Schalker Jahrhundertelf, the "Team of the century": he was included in the midfield. From 1929 to 1938 he played for the Germany national team which he led as captain in 30 matches and during two World Cups.

Fritz Szepan
Personal information
Full name Friedrich Szepan
Date of birth (1907-09-02)2 September 1907
Place of birth Gelsenkirchen, German Empire
Date of death 14 December 1974(1974-12-14) (aged 67)
Place of death Gelsenkirchen, West Germany
Position(s) Forward
Youth career
1924–1925 Schalke 04
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1925–1950 Schalke 04 265 (199)
International career
1929–1939 Germany 34 (8)
Managerial career
1949–1954 Schalke 04
1954–1956 Rot-Weiss Essen
Medal record
Men's football
Representing  Germany
FIFA World Cup
Third place 1934 Italy
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Usually a highly skilled midfielder, his versatility allowed him to play centre half and as forward. He was not very fast, however he compensated his lack of speed with fantastic intelligence, technique and positional play. Because of his extraordinary game understanding and leadership, he was later known as "Beckenbauer before the war".[1]

Career

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Youth

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Szepan was born in 1907 in the industrial town of Gelsenkirchen, in a family that came to Gelsenkirchen from the East Prussian Kreis Neidenburg. His father moved to the industrial centre of the Ruhr area to find work in the mining industry. In the typical working-class milieu of the "Kohlenpott", young Fritz grew up as one of six children in the family. The straw-blonde boy played soccer in the neighborhood street teams. After leaving school without a degree, Szepan completed an apprenticeship as a tinsmith at Küppersbusch and also ensured that his company's apprentice football team was successful.[2] He joined Schalke 04 as a youth player in 1924 and remained with the side until his retirement in 1950. He first played for the senior side at the age of 17 in 1924. At the instigation of his friend Ernst Kuzorra, Szepan joined the first team squad of FC Schalke 04 in 1925 at the age of 18.[3] He and his brother-in-law Ernst Kuzorra led Schalke during the era of the team's greatest success in the 1930s when it was the dominant club in Germany. Together they established the famous "Schalker Kreisel" system that used short flat passes to overwhelm their opponent's defence.[4]

Career at FC Schalke 04

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After Kuzorra and Szepan had established themselves in Schalke's first team, it developed into one of the best German club teams. In 1934, Schalke won the German championship for the first time, beating 1. FC Nürnberg 2-1 in the final, in which Szepan equalized in the 88th minute and Kuzorra scored the winning goal. Thanks to the perfectly celebrated "gyro", the art of the centimetre-precise, fast flat pass, free running and dribbling, the team in the royal blue jersey rushed from success to success in the following years.[5]

The fathers of success and central figures in the game system were Kuzorra and Szepan. This compensated for his lack of liveliness and speed with game intelligence, overview, technique and outstanding positional play. As a playmaker, Szepan was the thinker and leader of the team, Kuzorra was an iron-hard full-blooded striker and executor. Because of his extraordinary understanding of the game and his leadership on the pitch, Szepan was subsequently ennobled as a "pre-war cymbal builder". Nominally as a striker on the field, he usually let himself fall and directed the game from deep. Constructive play structure, under the direction of Szepan, was the key to the success of Schalke Kreisel.[6]

In 1935 the championship title was defended with a 6:4 win over VfB Stuttgart. Two years later, the “Knappen” won the first double in German football history with a championship and DFB-Pokal.[7] By 1942, Schalke had been in the championship final four more times, winning in 1939, 1940 and 1942. Schalke 04 dominated German football during this period and laid the foundation for the “Schalke legend”. The 1942 championship was to be the last championship for Schalke 04 in World War II and at the same time the last title for 16 years.[8] After the end of the war, “blonde Fritz” helped rebuild FC Schalke before ending his career in 1949 due to knee problems and back pain. On 12 November 1950, Szepan and his brother-in-law Kuzorra officially bid farewell in a game against Clube Atlético Mineiro in Schalke's Glückauf-Kampfbahn.[9]

Career in the national team

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Unlike Kuzorra, Szepan also had a successful international career. From 1929 to 1939[10] he played for the Germany national team which he led as captain in 30 matches and during two World Cups. In 1938, Szepan was named captain of the "Unified Germany" team shortly after the Anschluss. He started out at inside right but gained international recognition in his interpretation of the centre half role. Szepan made the play of Schalke and the Germany national side at a time when other centre halves were largely committed to covering the opposing centre forward. He however was not an easy-going player and declared his retirement from international play more than once. Szepan had a comeback in late 1936, playing at inside left. His displays again reached the high level of his 1934 World Cup performance and by 1937 Szepan was the outstanding playmaker of the Breslau XI.

After his retirement in 1950, Szepan remained active as coach for Wuppertaler SV, Schalke 04 and Rot-Weiß Essen,[11] leading that club to the German championship in 1955. He served Schalke again as club president from 1964 to 1967. He died on 14 December 1974 in his hometown Gelsenkirchen.

In his 1978 book "Fussball", Helmut Schön characterised Szepan as follows:

"One from the gallery of great playmakers, not markedly pacy, but talented to make the game pacy. He knew how to play directly but also capable of great solos - all that while being strong enough defensively to have played as a stopper. A commander."

Career statistics

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Club

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Appearances and goals by club, season and competition[12][13]
Club Season League German
Champ'ship		 Cup[a] Other[b] Total
Division Apps Goals Apps Goals Apps Goals Apps Goals Apps Goals
Schalke 04 1924–26 Emscher-Kreisliga 5 7 — — — 5 7
1926–27 Gauliga Ruhr 11 12 1 0 — 8 0 20 12
1927–28 Gauliga Ruhr 10 7 1 1 — 9 4 20 12
1928–29 Gauliga Ruhr 13 18 2 3 — 8 10 23 31
1929–30 Gauliga Ruhr 16 11 2 1 — 6 5 24 17
1930–31 Gauliga Ruhr 0 0 — — ="2"|— 0 0
1931–32 Gauliga Ruhr 10 14 3 2 — 5 4 18 20
1932–33 Gauliga Ruhr 14 7 4 2 — 5 6 23 15
1933–34 Gauliga Westfalen 16 5 8 4 — — 24 9
1934–35 Gauliga Westfalen 6 4 7 2 — — 13 6
1935–36 Gauliga Westfalen 15 8 8 3 6 3 — 29 14
1936–37 Gauliga Westfalen 14 15 8 6 6 2 — 28 23
1937–38 Gauliga Westfalen 9 8 9 3 4 2 — 22 13
1938–39 Gauliga Westfalen 16 10 8 5 1 0 — 25 15
1939–40 Gauliga Westfalen 17 14 8 7 2 5 — 27 26
1940–41 Gauliga Westfalen 17 11 8 6 3 3 — 28 20
1941–42 Gauliga Westfalen 16 12 5 8 5 0 — 26 20
1942–43 Gauliga Westfalen 17 16 3 1 4 1 4 5 28 23
1943–44 Gauliga Westfalen 13 15 2 2 4 3 — 19 20
1944–45 Gauliga Westfalen 0 0 — — — 0 0
1945–46 Landesliga Westfalen 9 3 — — — 9 3
1946–47 Landesliga Westfalen 11 1 — — 2 1 13 2
1947–48 Oberliga West 6 1 — — — 6 1
1948–49 Oberliga West 4 0 — — — 4 0
Career total 265 199 87 56 35 19 47 35 434 309
  1. ^ Tschammer-Pokal (forerunner of today's DFB-Pokal)
  2. ^ Includes Ruhr / Western German championship (1926–1933), Westphalian Cup (1943), Westphalian / British zone championship (1947)

International

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Appearances and goals by national team and year[10]
National team Year Apps Goals
Germany 1929 1 1
1930 1 0
1931 1 0
1932 0 0
1933 0 0
1934 7 1
1935 3 0
1936 6 1
1937 8 2
1938 4 1
1939 3 2
Total 34 8

Trivia

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  • He and fellow Schalke star Ernst Kuzorra married each other's sisters, and thus became brothers-in-law.

References

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  1. ^ "Fritz SZEPAN | 1932-1938 - PES Stats Database". Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 15 January 2012.
  2. ^ "From the "pit" to the professional league: Poles and Masurians in Ruhr area football". Porta Polonica. Retrieved 30 April 2024.
  3. ^ "14. Dezember 1974 - Tod des Schalker Fußball-Idols Fritz Szepan" (in German). WDR. 14 December 2019. Retrieved 30 April 2024.
  4. ^ "Vollkommen durchgedreht: Der Schalker Kreisel" (in German). WAZ. 17 June 2011. Retrieved 30 April 2024.
  5. ^ "Fritz Szepan in the World Cups". The Soccer World Cups. Retrieved 30 April 2024.
  6. ^ "Der Schalker Kreisel" (in German). Halbfeldflanke. 12 December 2015. Retrieved 30 April 2024.
  7. ^ "Vor 75 Jahren: Schalke erster Doublesieger" (in German). DFB. Retrieved 30 April 2024.
  8. ^ Epp, Eugen (18 May 2023). "65 Jahre ist es her, dass Schalke zuletzt Meister wurde – der Beginn einer Leidenszeit" (in German). Stern. Retrieved 30 April 2024.
  9. ^ Leszinski, Frank (12 November 2020). "Abschiedsspiel für zwei Schalker Legenden" (in German). Ruhr Nachrichten. Retrieved 30 April 2024.
  10. ^ a b Arnhold, Matthias (12 September 2004). "Fritz Szepan - International Appearances". RSSSF. Retrieved 20 June 2017.
  11. ^ "Fritz Szepan".
  12. ^ FC Schalke 04 (2015). Königsblau: Die Geschichte des FC Schalke 04. Die Werkstatt. ISBN 978-3-7307-0204-8.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  13. ^ "Fritz Szepan » Club matches". worldfootball.net.
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Sporting positions
Preceded by Germany captain
1934–1939 		Succeeded by

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