“Uwe Seeler will always have a permanent place in our hearts”
“I have only seen this level of popularity with Franz Beckenbauer”
The sports world says goodbye to Uwe Seeler. After his death, not only German, but also international football mourns the idol of the striker of Hamburger SV and the national team.
Nfter the death of football legend Uwe Seeler, fans placed candles and flowers in front of his home in Norderstedt and hung HSV scarves over the fence. Numerous scarves, candles and flowers were also placed around the oversized right bronze foot of the HSV striker legend at Hamburg’s Volksparkstadion to commemorate Seeler. On a piece of paper was “Dear Uwe, our hero forever! Thanks. Eternal Example” to read. The 5.30 meter high sculpture on the northeast corner of the stadium, weighing four tons, was inaugurated in August 2005.
In front of the bronze foot at the Volksparkstadion, fans set up candles and laid flowers in honor of the deceased Uwe Seeler
Source: dpa
The former national soccer player and honorary captain of the national team died on Thursday at the age of 85 surrounded by his family. There had been expressions of condolence and minutes of silence in his honor from and around the world. Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier also paid tribute to Seeler. “With Uwe Seeler we are losing a legend of German football and a unique personality without great pretense, at the same time the honest worker on the field and the brilliant goalscorer,” Steinmeier wrote to Seeler’s widow Ilka on Thursday. The couple was married for more than 63 years.
“One of the greatest legends of German football”
Like Steinmeier, numerous other politicians, companions or officials paid tribute to the honorary captain of the national team. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) was deeply affected. “Germany mourns the loss of ‘Us Uwe’. He was a role model for many, a football legend and of course an honorary citizen of Hamburg,” wrote Scholz on Twitter. “For his 80th birthday I was allowed to give the after-dinner speech: “We all want to be like #UnsUwe: self-confident and modest.” He will be missed.”
Olaf Scholz (r.) together with Uwe Seeler at a Senate breakfast on the occasion of the 80th birthday of the honorary citizen of Hamburg
Source: picture alliance / BREUEL-BILD
The president of the world association, Gianni Infantino, expressed his condolences and sympathy to the Seelers family. “The news of Uwe Seeler’s death affects us all deeply. He is one of the greatest legends in German football. His achievements and records will not be forgotten. He was not only a great striker, but also a model of humility and down-to-earthness,” Infantino was quoted as saying in a FIFA statement.
President Marcell Jansen of the Hamburger SV eV sports club said: “Uwe Seeler will always have a permanent place in our hearts. With his likeable and warm nature, he is and will remain a role model for many people – in HSV and beyond. We wish Uwe’s family and friends a lot of strength and our thoughts are with them,” said the former international.
National coach Hansi Flick was also deeply affected by the death of the former world-class striker, who had never played for a club other than Hamburger SV in his career. “Uwe Seeler was a role model for generations of national players. With his down-to-earth, modest and reserved manner, he also inspired people off the pitch and won them over,” says Flick. “His name is a symbol of club loyalty and loyalty. He was on the pitch at four World Cups himself, later he accompanied our national team to tournaments as honorary captain and part of the DFB delegation, for example to South Africa in 2010. We have always enjoyed having him around. Uwe Seeler inspired us. All of us in the national team and in the DFB will miss him very much.”
“Loyalty and Humanity”
“Anyone who thinks of German football and its greatest thinks of Uwe Seeler,” said Oliver Kahn, CEO of FC Bayern, in a statement. “His death is a painful loss for the whole football family. Seeler stood for honest football, for loyalty and humanity, he was a player with heart and for hearts – we will always remember him as one of the very special people in the sport.”
Loyalty to the club: Uwe Seeler (right) never played for any club other than his beloved HSV
Quelle: picture-alliance / dpa
The current champions league holder also bowed from the football icon: “Real Madrid would like to express their condolences, love and affection to all his relatives, his teammates, his club and all his loved ones.” the World Cup semifinals in 1970. “It’s one of the best European strikers of all time,” wrote the football bible “Gazzetta dello Sport”. The British newspaper “The Guardian” described Seeler with the words: “Before the elegant and technical era of Franz Beckenbauer, he represented the traditional strengths of German football: power, high morale, commitment and an untamable will to win.”
Hamburg’s Mayor Peter Tschentscher paid tribute to the deceased honorary citizen of the city as an “extraordinary Hanseatic personality. With Uwe Seeler, our city loses a piece of itself – down-to-earth, honest, Hanseatic,” said Tschentscher. With his energy, fairness and straightforwardness, Seeler played his way into people’s hearts “and has become a sporting and human role model for many in Germany and beyond,” said the SPD politician. “Uwe Seeler has rendered outstanding services to the common good in his hometown with his voluntary commitment.” Hamburg mourns the loss of its honorary citizen and will “remember him as an extraordinary Hanseatic personality”.
