Germany's captain marvel

Fritz Walter

To help mark UEFA's Jubilee, each national association was asked to nominate its most outstanding player of the past 50 years. In the latest in a series of articles looking at the Golden Player selected by the nations who have qualified for UEFA EURO 2008™, uefa.com remembers the career of Germany's Fritz Walter.

He played for only one club, 1. FC Kaiserslautern, making his first-team debut at the age of 17. He scored a hat-trick on his international debut two years later. And on 4 July 1954, he captained West Germany to their first FIFA World Cup triumph, as they beat Hungary 3-2 in Berne. Indeed, had his national-team career not been interrupted for eight years between 1942 and 1950, Fritz Walter would likely have become the first player to win 100 caps for his country.