GDR footballers celebrate 50 years of gold: "Victory for eternity"

The Olympic victory in Montreal almost 50 years ago crowned the most successful period of the GDR national soccer team. The state amateurs took the gold medal with a 3:1 victory over Poland in the final on July 31, 1976. Half a century after their greatest success, eight former players got together in Rostock for the first time. "We realized it was about time, because we hardly have any time left," said Gerd Kische, who organized the alumni reunion together with third-division soccer club Hansa Rostock.

With a talk in the evening at the Ostseestadion and a visit to Hansa Rostock's match against Jahn Regensburg on Saturday, the program is well filled, with time to indulge. "It was a victory for eternity. Nobody can and will take that away from us," said Hartmut Schade in a media round table.

Double strike as the basis

The Dresden player had laid the foundation with the 1:0 against Poland, who had finished third at the World Cup in Germany two years earlier, and Magdeburg's Martin Hoffmann increased the lead to 2:0 seven minutes later. Even Grzegorz Lato's equalizer after just under an hour did not rattle the GDR team.

Dynamo Dresden's Reinhard Häfner, who died in 2016, made the difference with a solo goal in the 84th minute. "The 3-1 was a relief and the decider," said Martin Hoffmann, who had won the European Cup Winners' Cup with 1. FC Magdeburg two years earlier.

Hope for uniqueness

Despite winning the final again, Magdeburg's most successful player needed a moment to internalize the game: "I was happy to win the game at first. We all only realized how important it was later."