The first leg in a Kurt-Wabbel Stadium packed with 35,000 spectators had ended in a 0-0 draw. The return would be played at a neutral site in the Vliert in Den Bosch, due to a UEFA penalty for PSV for throwing a beer can at a linesman in the game with Real Madrid the season before.
Wolfgang Schmidt was one of the club’s greatest talents. With nineteen goals he had become top scorer in the junior Oberliga and at nineteen years old one of the youngsters in the group. Wolfgang Hoffmann was another promise, slightly older, 21 years.
Together at the football boarding school
Schmidt and Hoffmann had attended the club’s football boarding school together. They had been neighbours, their rooms side by side. “We had a very good relationship,” says Schmidt. “He was more than a teammate. He was a friend. I also knew his fiancée well.”
Hoffmann was initially not going to travel to Eindhoven with the selection at all, but because striker Werner Peter had to stay at home for political reasons, Hoffmann was allowed to come along. The East German authorities suspected that attacker Peter was a flight risk, because of family connections in the west.
