Herbert "Ertl" Erhard (6 July 1930 – 3 July 2010), also known as Herbert Erhardt, was a German

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

who played as a defender.

Club career

Erhard played for SpVgg Fürth and Bayern Munich. He was known for his hard tackling, doggedness and

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

-like performances. The

German Football Association The German Football Association ( ; DFB ) is the governing body of Association football, football, futsal, and beach soccer in Germany. A founding member of both FIFA and UEFA, the DFB has jurisdiction for the German football league system and ...

lists Erhardt in the top 20 best German defenders of all time, and Bayern Munich included him in their best 16 in a team made up in the 1980s of famous past players. Erhard started out as a full back before being used as a half back by the mid-1950s. He then settled in the center half position by the end of the 1950s.

International career

Erhard earned 50

caps Caps are flat headgear. Caps or CAPS may also refer to: Science and technology Computing * CESG Assisted Products Service, provided by the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters * Composite Application Platform Suite, by Java Caps, a Java ...

for the West Germany national team, and was a member of the German team which won the

1954 FIFA World Cup The 1954 FIFA World Cup was the 5th edition of the FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international Association football, football tournament for senior men's national teams of the nations affiliated to FIFA. It was held in Switzerland from 16 June ...

. He also participated in two other World Cups, in 1958 and

1962 The year saw the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is often considered the closest the world came to a Nuclear warfare, nuclear confrontation during the Cold War. Events January * January 1 – Samoa, Western Samoa becomes independent from Ne ...

. Although Erhard did not play in the 1954 World Cup, coach

Sepp Herberger Josef "Sepp" Herberger (28 March 1897 – 28 April 1977) was a German football player and manager. He is most famous for being the manager of the West Germany national team that won the 1954 FIFA World Cup final, a match later dubbed '' The Mir ...

toyed with the idea of changing his defense by adding Erhardt as the left back in the final game against

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

instead of Werner Kohlmeyer, but eventually decided to keep the same line-up as in the semifinal against

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

.Bitter, Jürgen. ''Deutschlands Fußball Nationalspieler'', Sportverlag, 1997, p. 107. Herberger proved his tactical acumen by moving Erhardt to central defense in early 1958. In this new stopper role, Erhard proved to be a stand-out for Germany during the

1958 FIFA World Cup The 1958 FIFA World Cup was the 6th FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams. It was played in Sweden from 8 to 29 June 1958. It was the first and only FIFA World Cup to be played in a Nordic country. Br ...

and remained Germany's standard stopper until his retirement from international play in September 1962. Between 1959 and 1962, Erhard had captained West Germany 16 times.

References

External links

* * * * 1930 births 2010 deaths Footballers from Fürth German men's footballers Germany men's international footballers Men's association football defenders 1954 FIFA World Cup players 1958 FIFA World Cup players 1962 FIFA World Cup players FIFA World Cup–winning players FC Bayern Munich footballers SpVgg Greuther Fürth players German football managers FC Augsburg managers BC Augsburg managers West German men's footballers {{germany-footy-defender-1930s-stub