Paul Wolfisberg (15 June 1933 – 24 August 2020) was a Swiss

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

player and coach.

Biography

Born in 1933 in

Horw Horw (; Swiss German: ''Horb'') is a municipality in the district of Lucerne in the canton of Lucerne in Switzerland. History Horw is first mentioned in 1231 as ''Horwe''. Geography Horw has an area of . Of this area, 32.6% is used for agri ...

, Wolfisberg first played for FC Horw before joining

FC Luzern Fussball-Club Luzern (), or simply abbreviated to FCL, is a Swiss sports club based in Lucerne (). It is best known for its professional association football, football team, which plays in the Swiss Super League, Super League, the top tier of the ...

at the age of 17. In 1954, he joined

FC Biel-Bienne FC Biel-Bienne is a Swiss association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball ...

while studying at the Technicum in

Biel/Bienne Biel/Bienne (official bilingual wording; German language, German: ''Biel'' ; French language, French: ''Bienne'' ; Bernese German, locally ; ; ; ) is a bilingual city in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. With over 55,000 residents, it is the ...

. He returned to Luzern in 1955 after being recruited by coach

Rudi Gutendorf Rudolf Gutendorf (30 August 1926 – 13 September 2019) was a German football manager, renowned for managing the highest number of national teams – a total of 18 teams plus Iran's Olympic team in 1988 and the China Olympic team in 1992 ...

. In 1960, he won the

Swiss Cup The Swiss Cup (; ; ; ) is a football cup competition that has been organised annually since 1925–26 season by the Swiss Football Association. The Swiss Cup final is usually the most important game of the year with a high attendance. The co ...

as captain of FC Luzern. He retired as a footballer in 1966. In 1966, Wolfisberg became manager of

SC Buochs SC Buochs is a Swiss football club, founded in 1934 (officially). The club colours are blue and white derived from the town Buochs's coat of arms. Their home ground is Stadion Seefeld, which has a proclaimed capacity of 5,000 (1,000 seats, 4,000 s ...

, which led the

Swiss Challenge League The Challenge League (known as the Dieci Challenge League for sponsorship reasons) is the second-highest tier of the Swiss football league system and lower of two professional leagues in the country. Ten teams play in the Challenge League; the wi ...

in 1972. After temporarily leaving his post, he returned in December 1972 for the second round. He returned to FC Luzern in 1975 as co-manager alongside Josef Vogel, replacing

Ilijas Pašić Ilijas Pašić (10 May 1934 – 2 February 2015) was a Yugoslav football player and manager. Playing career Club He started playing football at FK Romanija at Pale, a small club based on the outskirts of Sarajevo. At the age of 18 he made a mov ...

and was soon replaced by

Otto Luttrop Otto Luttrop (1 March 1939 – 21 November 2017) was a German football player and coach. As a player, he spent three seasons in the Bundesliga with TSV 1860 Munich. He coached mainly in Switzerland. Luttrop died on 21 November 2017, aged 78. H ...

. He returned to coaching in October 1975, leading SC Kriens, where he succeeded the late Egon Milder. He was relieved of his coaching duties in 1977 but was retained as a technical director of the club. In 1978, he became technical director at FC Luzern, which led the

Swiss Super League The Super League (also known as the Credit Suisse Super League for sponsorship reasons) is a professional association football league in Switzerland and the highest level of the Swiss football league system. It has been played in its current fo ...

in 1979. In 1981, Wolfisberg was appointed head coach of the Switzerland national team, leading 52 matches until 1985, when he was axed following a failure to qualify for the

1986 FIFA World Cup The 1986 FIFA World Cup was the 13th FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial Association football, football tournament for men's senior national teams. It was played in Mexico from 31 May to 29 June 1986. The tournament was the second to feature a 24-tea ...

. In 1989, he supported

Uli Stielike Ulrich "Uli" Stielike (born 15 November 1954) is a German former footballer and manager. Usually a central midfielder or sweeper, Stielike was well known for his stamina and footballing intelligence.Radnedge, Keir. (2004). The Complete Encyclop ...

as head of the National Team. Wolfisberg died at his home in Horw on 24 August 2020 at the age of 87.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wolfisberg, Paul 1933 births 2020 deaths People from Lucerne-Land District Swiss men's footballers Men's association football forwards FC Luzern players FC Biel-Bienne players Swiss Super League players Swiss football managers FC Luzern managers SC Kriens managers Switzerland national football team managers Footballers from the canton of Lucerne 20th-century Swiss sportsmen