Sigfried Held, a native of Bruntál, celebrated his 80th birthday on Sunday. The German press really raced with stories revolving around the player, who was called Schweiger (Quiet) for his character, but not much has been said about his origins.

Just remember that he grew up in the Bavarian town of Marktheidenfeld with a population of 10,000. Only a handful of media added that he was born in the Czech Sudetenland.

However, nothing else is said about his birthplace. There was still some kind of fog over it.

The two-time World Championship medalist was born in Bruntál on the border of Moravia and Silesia, but locals don’t know much about his famous compatriot. The search for a football line was futile, logically enough, because the football club Slavoj-Olympia was founded in 1945. That is, shortly after the war, when all German associations were abolished by law, Held was only three years old and had not even begun to devote himself for organized football which he can’t

At least a small reference can be found in the city museum. “There’s a card in it about his move,” says Pavel Rapušák of the Club for Old Bruntál, which is dedicated to the city’s history and also looking for people born in the city. “A lexicon of 3,000 natives is being prepared, in which Held is mentioned,” says Rapušák.

Looking at the homeowner’s digital archives was fruitless, again the reason was simple, the Held family weren’t rich enough to buy their own house. And the records of people registered to live in apartments are incomplete.

Nevertheless, at least after a documentary trip, the famous German attacker will return home. “He is of course a very interesting character and we will try to find out more about him,” promised Rapušák.

However, an examination of the official records revealed something. Held was born into a German family, his father Friedrich (born 1914) by profession as a clerk. He and his wife Margarete (1918) had one more son, Friedrich who was one year old at the time of deportation.

The family suffered a very similar fate to many other Germans after the end of World War II. Although he did not cooperate in any way with the occupying regime, his “back to the Reich” deportation, as it was said at the time, concerned him directly.

In June 1946 they were expelled to the Machold concentration camp, where they awaited transport and in September 1946 they were sent by train to another concentration camp in Domažlice. It is already a US occupation zone. From there they were transferred to a refugee camp in Würzburg and then assigned to the village of Marktheidenfeld, where the father found work at the train station and the mother became an additional worker on a local farm.

In the first wave alone, 3,700 Germans were transferred from Bruntál, mostly retirees, women and children.

The two sons soon found their only pastime and pastime after school – football. It was played every day, every afternoon until dark, until all the boys were “summoned” to dinner. Sigfried’s father understood Sigfried’s enthusiasm and signed him up for local club Turn Verein 1884. Daily training, as “Siggi” himself would later say, together with discipline, was the key to football’s future success.

After graduating from high school business, he trained in a company with a tax consultant, soon became a proficient tax expert and managed accounting for several relatives. At the age of twenty, he was drafted into the service of the Bundeswehr, where he was noticed during a game with a suburban club by representatives of Kickers Offenbach and continued to follow him throughout his military service.

He was called up for a selection of promising military athletes, led by Dettmar Cramer, assistant coach of the Sepp Herberger national team. At the age of 21, he appeared not only on the Offenbach Kicker field, at Bieberer Berg, but also at the world military match – the Military World Cup, held annually starting in 1946, then from 1972, always with a destructive year.

It lasted just two seasons in the red and white Kickers jersey and moved to the Dortmund Bundesliga (1965–1971 and 1977–1979), where he and Reinhard Libuda and Lothar Emmerich formed a striking force of black and yellow. His fame grew, coach Willi Multhaup stating he was “born for football”.

The gates of the national team were wide open for him.

He made his debut in a friendly with England at the Empire Stadium in London (23 February 1966 – 0:1), and his international debut was a duel with Scotland at Hampden Park in Glasgow (14 November 1973 – 1:1). He was decorated with a vice-champion medal from 1966 and a bronze from the World Cup in Mexico in 1970. He never played against the election of the country where he was born.

He has two children with his wife Christine, his son is a successful psychoanalyst, his daughter is a biologist.

He worked as a coach in many German and foreign clubs, leading the national teams of Iceland, Malta and Thailand. However, there is no mention of its Moravian origin. “I know that he also coached Schalke 04, when there are celebrations, it reminds of that,” admits Jiří Němec, the Czech personality of the club. “But I didn’t know that he was born here, it was never even mentioned,” he insists.

Held’s 80th birthday celebration only proves how popular and well-liked he is in Germany. Most fans associate him with a very special quality that has also earned him the legendary nickname: schweiger – quiet. And everyone who knew him added in one breath that even a “silent” person could say big sentences.

The unforgettable story of a dog biting an opponent’s ass during Dortmund’s game against Schalke 04 in 1969 is retold. Held just smiled at the memory, then said with a smirk: “You have to admire how smart the dogs we had at Dortmund were back then. They can bite anyone in the field. But not. They picked the Schalke players out of everyone!’

Held didn’t find his nickname attractive for a long time, he even found it inappropriate. He thinks of himself more as someone who likes to talk a lot, just not all the time and with everyone. As journalists continued to want to know more about the inner workings of the dressing room, he became withdrawn. Once someone asked how he was. He replied: “Do you want to get me out?” The next morning he could read his new nickname in the paper, which he never got rid of.

Not to mention as a coach. Years later, during his time at Dynamo Dresden, sporting director Udo Klug said of him: “Siggi doesn’t usually talk, but he talks a lot!”