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Jürgen Sparwasser (born 4 June 1948 in Halberstadt) is a retired German football player and, later, briefly a football manager.
Sparwasser began his playing career in the youth department of his hometown club BSG Lokomotive Halberstadt in 1956. In 1965, he moved to 1. FC Magdeburg, where he made his senior debut in January 1966. He would remain with the club until 1979, when a hip injury ended his career. Over the course of his career, he played in 271 DDR-Oberliga matches as a midfielder, scoring 111 goals. When Magdeburg was relegated to the second-tier DDR-Liga at the end of the 1965–66 season, Sparwasser played an integral role in their immediate repromotion, scoring 22 goals in 27 matches.[1] He also appeared in 40 matches in various European competitions.[2] He was part of the team that won the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1974.[3]
Between 1969 and 1977, Sparwasser played in 49 matches for the East Germany, scoring 14 goals.[4] As a member of the Olympic team in 1972, he played in 7 matches and scored 5 goals, earning a shared bronze medal for his native country.[5] He also made six appearances for East Germany at the 1974 FIFA World Cup finals, where he gained fame for scoring the winning goal in a politically charged match against West Germany.
This goal was politically exploited, but Sparwasser did not profit from it. As he later said: "Rumor had it I was richly rewarded for the goal, with a car, a house, and a cash premium. But that is not true."[6] In 1988, Sparwasser defected to West Germany while participating in a veterans' tournament there.
After his playing career, Sparwasser had a brief managerial career, serving as assistant manager at Eintracht Frankfurt in 1988 and 1989, and as head coach at SV Darmstadt 98 in 1990 and 1991.
