Football Career
During his early career, Burgsmüller played in two different spells for local Rot-Weiss Essen and Bayer Uerdingen alike. In his first stint with the latter club, in the regional leagues, he scored 29 goals in two separate seasons, followed by 22. After failing to score initially for Essen, he returned in 1974 and scored an average of 16 per year.
In October 1976, Burgsmüller left Uerdingen for Borussia Dortmund (where he fielded almost exclusively as a midfielder, but where he also had the most productive years of his career individually, never netting fewer than 15 goals in the top division). In the 1980–81 season, he scored a career-best – in division one – 27 goals, helping the North Rhine-Westphalia side finish in seventh position, and ranking second in the goalscorers' chart, just two behind Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, who played for champions FC Bayern Munich.
After one sole season with 1. FC Nuremberg, Burgsmüller moved to the second level with Rot-Weiß Oberhausen. In his first year, he was crucial as the team narrowly avoided relegation, scoring 29 times and being crowned Torjäger, with 12 goals more than the next player.
Burgsmüller started the next season in scoring fashion, netting seven times in only 15 matches. In November 1985, at nearly 36, he returned to the first division, signing for SV Werder Bremen, where he would achieve team success: he scored in his first game, a 2–1 win at Borussia Mönchengladbach, adding two in his third, a 6–0 home routing of VfB Stuttgart, and totalling 13 in only 20 matches for the season, as Werder finished second; during his spell, the veteran appeared in 115 league games with 34 goals, being an important offensive element in the conquest of the 1988 league title.
Burgsmüller retired at almost 41, also having appeared three times for West Germany, in friendlies comprised in a three-month span; his debut came on 16 November 1977, in a 4–1 win with Switzerland.
Read more about this topic: Manfred Burgsmüller
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