The deposed World Cup goalscorer

On November 10, 2006, the historians of the International Football Association, FIFA, rewrote a chapter of the second World Cup in 1934.

After further research FIFA awarded Czech Oldrich Nejedly a fifth tournament goal, 72 years after the event. Consequently Nejedly became the top goalscorer, ahead of Italian Angelo Schiavio and German Edmund Conen, who both had scored four times. Sixteen years after his death Conen had thus been deposed as the best goalscorer in Italy. But in the World Cup chronicles of the German Football Association, DFB, Conen still holds joint third position, with six other players, behind Max Morlock and Gerd Muller in the ratio of matches to goals.

Edmund Conen was born at Uerzig on November 10, 1914. The village is situated in a large bend of the Moselle surrounded by vineyards. Conen came from a family of tailors. His four brothers and one brother-in-law founded the club SV Uerzig, for which he played before he joined FV Saarbruecken during his high-school time. Just 19 years old, Edmund Conen earned his first cap under national coach Otto Nerz against Hungary in Frankfurt/Main on January 14, 1934. It was the 99^th official match for a DFB team. The striker scored the final goal in the 80^th minute for the 3-1 win. Nerz’s first comment about the debutant: “Today you played twice in the national team - for the first and last time”.

But three months after this heartless criticism he called Conen into the squad for the World Cup in Italy. It was not just a debut for Conen. Since Germany had not participated at the 1930 World Cup premiere in Uruguay, the DFB sent a team to a World Cup tournament for the first time.

When Germany lined up against Belgium (5-2) for their first ever World Cup match on May 27, 1934, Conen was actually in the starting team. Stanislaus Kobierski (27^th minute) scored the first World Cup goal for Germany. But: “Ed” Conen achieved no fewer than three goals within just 20 minutes (66^th, 69^th, 85^th) in the second half and was the man of the match. The following conversation has been handed down from the halftime break: At 2-1 for Belgium self-confident Conen said to stressed and authoritarian Nerz: “Let me play my own game”. Conen later recounted the incident as follows: “Nerz said: ‘Do what you like’ and I did just that.”

When the FIFA historians deposed Conen as the best goalscorer of 1934, they also corrected another error. For a long time Argentine Stabile was considered the player who had achieved the first ever hat-trick (8^th, 17^th, 80^th) at a World Cup, during the 6-3 victory over Mexico. Now FIFA awarded this honour to American Patenaude (41^st, 45^th, 48^th) in the 3-0 win against Paraguay on July 17, 1930. Stabile and Argentina played only two days later. However, FIFA are not always as exact with their statistics as real experts and purists would like. For the original definition of a hat-trick is that of the “English ancestors”: three successive goals by the same player in one half. Considering that definition, then Conen was the first player to achieve a perfect hat-trick. For Patenaude (USA), Stabile (Argentina), Cea (Uruguay) as well as Schiavio (Italy, 1934) all scored their goals during two halves.

Just seven players have repeated Conen’s feat: Wetterstrom (Sweden/1938), Probst (Austria/1954), Pele (Brazil/1958), Muller (Germany/1970), Lineker (England/1986), Salenko (Russia/1994) and Batistuta (Argentina/1998).

After Edmund Conen showed a rather disappointing performance against Czechoslovakia in the World Cup semi-final, he was back to his true form in the match for third place against Austria, and contributed Germany’s second goal for the 3-2 victory. The newspaper “Völkischer Beobachter“ wrote afterwards: “The best of this triumph is that we managed to defeat Austria’s unbeatable wonder team.“ Conen, however, has never been happy with this bronze medal. “If our goalkeeper Kress hadn’t had such a bad day in the semi-final, we would have been in the final.”

But the following was even worse: Two years after the World Cup, Conen suffered heart problems, and was forced to rest for more than three years. Weeping with emotion, he earned another cap for Germany in Denmark (2-0) on June 25, 1939, and scored again. He made his last international match in 1942 – as with his debut, against Hungary (5-3). Germany, now coached by Sepp Herberger, were 3-1 down at half-time, but together Conen and the young Fritz Walter managed to turn the match around.

Edmund Conen’s career ended at the age of 28 after 28 caps and altogether 27 goals. The player became a football instructor and hotel manager. Later he underwent retraining as a computer expert and worked at the train repairing centre at Opladen, where he coached BV 01 Opladen. Conen died on March 5, 1990, a few weeks before Germany won their third World Cup title in Italy.