Uwe Seeler

• Honorary Award Recipient of the DFL
• Top scorer in the first Bundesliga season

Uwe Seeler, born in 1936, became a DFL Ehrenpreisträger (Honorary Award Recipient) in 2016 in recognition of his outstanding achievements as a great sportsman. “Want to win, be able to lose”: he lived by his motto in an exemplary fashion, even in difficult moments, as particularly embodied by his and the whole team’s gracious response to two defeats: their conduct after losing the 1966 World Cup final in extra time to hosts England and their equally unlucky semi-final exit at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico in the “game of the century” against Italy (3:4 after extra time) earned huge international admiration. It is no coincidence that this idol was the first German athlete to receive the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Even more so than the German national team, for whom he played in four World Cups following his debut as a 17-year-old in 1954 and earned 72 caps (scoring 43 goals) before being made the second honorary captain after Fritz Walter, his footballing home was Hamburger SV. “Our Uwe” was a one-club man, playing solely for his long-established home-town club until 1972. With HSV, he won the Bundesliga in 1960 and the DFB-Pokal in 1963, as well as being top scorer in the Bundesliga’s maiden 1963-64 season with 30 goals. Uwe Seeler made a total of 239 Bundesliga appearances (scoring 137 goals).

Despite his huge popularity, he remained resolutely down-to-earth and helped people in need with his eponymous foundation, set up in 1996. Uwe Seeler died in 2022 at the age of 85.

^{Photo: Witters/Tim Groothuis}