Manfred Schäfer or Schaefer (born 12 February 1943) is a former football (soccer)

Football (soccer)

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...

 defender. He was born in Königsberg

Königsberg

Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...

 (in 1946 renamed Kaliningrad

Kaliningrad

Kaliningrad is a seaport and the administrative center of Kaliningrad Oblast, the Russian exclave between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea...

) and emigrated to Australia aged 14.

Schaefer Street in the Sydney suburb of Glenwood

Glenwood, New South Wales

Glenwood is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Glenwood is located 40 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of the City of Blacktown...

 is named for him.

Club career

Schäfer played for only three clubs in his club football career in Australia, for Blacktown

Blacktown City Demons

Blacktown City FC, formerly The Demons, are an Australian football club based in Blacktown, New South Wales, Australia. The club was formed in 1953 as Toongabbie Soccer Club and changed their name to Blacktown City in 1979...

 between 1960 and 1963, Budapest between 1963 and 1964 and for St. George-Budapest between 1965 and 1975 before retiring in 1975.

International career

He was a member of the Australian 1974 World Cup squad in West Germany and made his international debut in 1967 and was a fixture in the Australian side till his retirement at the end of the 1974 World Cup finals.

Schäfer represented Australia 73 times, scoring 1 goal. He played in all three of Australia's matches in the 1974 FIFA World Cup

1974 FIFA World Cup

The 1974 FIFA World Cup, the tenth staging of the World Cup, was held in West Germany from 13 June to 7 July. The tournament marked the first time that the current trophy, the FIFA World Cup Trophy, created by the Italian sculptor Silvio Gazzaniga, was awarded...

. Schäfer was an inaugural inductee into the Australian Soccer Hall of Fame and also had NSW representative honours.

Management career

After retiring as a player Schäfer went on to have a long distinguished career as a coach in the NSL

National Soccer League

The National Soccer League is the former national association football competition in Australasia, overseen by Soccer Australia and later the Australian Soccer Association. The NSL spanned 28 seasons from its inception in 1977, until its demise in 2004...

 with St. George-Budapest, Sydney Olympic, Brunswick Juventus

Brunswick Juventus

Brunswick Juventus is an Australian association football club from Brunswick, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The club was a participant in the National Soccer League, where they were champions in 1985, and Victorian Premier League, in which they won eight titles...

, APIA Leichhardt, Sydney Croatia, Marconi Stallions

Marconi Stallions

The Marconi Stallions Football Club is an Australian football club located in Sydney, Australia. The club won the National Soccer League title a record four times, along with South Melbourne FC and Sydney City SC...

, Adelaide Sharks and Parramatta Power

Parramatta Power

Parramatta Power were a football team which was based in western Sydney. They played in the National Soccer League from season 1999/2000 until the league folded in 2004. The Power were runners up to Perth Glory in the 2003/04 season of the NSL after Perth made the Grand Final look easy in...

.