greatest ever east german player

[arminius]

o.k who is the greatest ever player from 'ost deutschland' including current players like michael ballack. Here's some previous players worthy of consideration, joachim streich 55 goals in 100 matches for DDR, hans joerg doerner 102 times capped for DDR, juergen sparwasser scored winning goal for DDR against west germany in '74 world cup, mathias sammer euro footballer of the year 1996,also led germany to euro title in 1996 and dortmund to champions league title in'97. others - thomas doll, andreas thom, etc. my pick would be either sammer or ballack, any opinions.

[nachi88]

o.k who is the greatest ever player from 'ost deutschland' including current players like michael ballack. Here's some previous players worthy of consideration, joachim streich 55 goals in 100 matches for DDR, hans joerg doerner 102 times capped for DDR, juergen sparwasser scored winning goal for DDR against west germany in '74 world cup, mathias sammer euro footballer of the year 1996,also led germany to euro title in 1996 and dortmund to champions league title in'97. others - thomas doll, andreas thom, etc. my pick would be either sammer or ballack, any opinions.

it has to be mathias sammer. euro player of the year and a sweeper of the caliber of the legendary kaiser. joachim streich, most of his goals were tap ins ( kind of like rvn). ballack can be up there, but he should win a majot tournament to rank amongst the bests.

[arminius]

it has to be mathias sammer. euro player of the year and a sweeper of the caliber of the legendary kaiser. joachim streich, most of his goals were tap ins ( kind of like rvn). ballack can be up there, but he should win a majot tournament to rank amongst the bests.
If not for injuries sammer could have went on to even better things, streich's strike rate(no pun intended) was impressive, even if tap ins(they all count), and i got a feeling ballack will deliver a major trophy to germany before he's done(hopefully 2006).

[nachi88]

If not for injuries sammer could have went on to even better things, streich's strike rate(no pun intended) was impressive, even if tap ins(they all count), and i got a feeling ballack will deliver a major trophy to germany before he's done(hopefully 2006).


yes, i have a similar feeling about ballack. he is going to get us wc06. its a gut feeling. i had one for euro96 also. streich majority goals were against horrible east european communist oposition ( in the earlier warsaw cups) like poland, bulgaria, north korea, and all communist countries. thats not a big deal. if he played in the west german team, he would never be called over seeler or muller.

[nachi88]

infact i'll say ulf kirsten is better than joachim streich.but problem is that he has played for both east germany and united germany. so his goals are divided. he also had a couple of memorable seasons at leverkusen.

[arminius]

infact i'll say ulf kirsten is better than joachim streich.but problem is that he has played for both east germany and united germany. so his goals are divided. he also had a couple of memorable seasons at leverkusen.
Don't know how i forgot to mention ulf kirsten, i think he's the 5th leading scorer in bundesliga history with around 180 goals, also 3 times top scorer in bundesliga.

[nachi88]

Don't know how i forgot to mention ulf kirsten, i think he's the 5th leading scorer in bundesliga history with around 180 goals, also 3 times top scorer in bundesliga.

my rankings would be like this

1) Sammer
2) Ballack
3) Kirsten
4) Streich
5) Thon ( i think he was ossi by birth)

[giorgiob8]

Mathias Sammer! Hands down! Well round player, able to inspire a whole team around him.
Ulf Kirsten was a good striker, but too uni-dimensional.
Ballack is good and has the potential to be even better but still needs to write history.
Streich, too attached to some specific facts to be comparable.