Great sadness at Werder Bremen: Former national goalkeeper Dieter Burdenski died unexpectedly. According to the club, the honorary captain of the Bremen Bundesliga club died on Wednesday at the age of 73. With 444 Bundesliga appearances, Burdenski has played more games in the top division during his active career than any other Werder player. In total, he guarded the Bremen goal 582 times.
“The news of his death shocks us and makes us deeply sad,” says Hubertus Hess-Grunewald, President and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Werder: “Budde shaped our team for two decades and is undoubtedly one of the greatest Werder players of all time. We all appreciated him very much for his reliability, his always positive attitude to life, his passion for Werder, but also his critical spirit.”
Burdenski was there last Saturday for Bremen’s home game in the Weser Stadium. He was honored there with the 1999 cup winners, for whom he had worked as a goalkeeping coach. Burdenski, who was under contract in Germany with Schalke 04 and Arminia Bielefeld, among others, before playing for Werder for over 16 years, guarded the goal for the German senior national team a total of twelve times. He made his debut for the DFB team in the international match against Uruguay in 1977.
