A young Dieter Hoeneß began his football career as a goalkeeper, playing that role from age 6 till 14 at German club VfB Ulm. The club was also co-founded by his father, Erwin Hoeneß 13th November 1949.
After 8 years at his father's club, Hoeneß joinedTSG Ulm, where he played for the next 6 years. It was in 1973 that he made the leap to VfR Aalen, where he took part in the first amateur league (third division). The German forward managed to win the championship in his debut season, contributing an impressive 23 goals to help his goal achieve glory. Despite this success, the reform of league football at the time meant that VfR could not reach the upper division. Hoeneß ultimately failed to get promoted to the Bundesliga with VfR.
Following his 2 year stint with VfR, second division club VfB Stuttgart signed him in 1975. He managed to score 19 goals within 2 seasons at the club, and he finally achieved promotion to the Bundesliga with Stuttgart. The German performed brilliantly in the 1978–79 season campaign, with his 16 goals helping Stuttgart finish the league in second place.
Those heroics also meant that he caught the attention of a certain German giant, and thus he made the move to Germany's biggest club. Let us now look at Dieter Hoeneß's memorable 8 year stint with the Bavarians.
Bayern's German striking machine
It was in 1979 that Bayern Munich signed Hoeneß from Stuttgart. The German had a strong reputation at the time, being popularly known as a powerful striker with exquisite heading abilities. He went on becoming a scoring machine for the Bavarian club, recording five double digit goalscoring hauls during his time at Bayern. This resulted in Hoeneß scoring a total of 102 league goals in 224 league matches for the German club.
His European stats for Bayern were commendable as well, with 26 goals in 52 appearances. Hoeneß helped Bayern reach the semi finals of the 1980 UEFA Europa League, and even finished as the competition's season top scorer with seven goals. Bayern managed to reach the European Cup final just 2 years later in 1982, but Hoeneß and his teammates suffered heartbreak yet again after suffering defeat to Aston Villa.
Hoeneß was widely popular during his time at Bayern, with his natural fighting spirit and goalscoring abilities making him popular among the fans. The German forward had one of his memorable performances in a Bayern shirt on 25th February 1984, as he scored 5 goals in Bayern's 6-0 thrashing of Eintracht Braunschweig.
He managed to reach yet another European Cup final with Bayern in 1987, but suffered yet another heart breaking loss, this time against FC Porto.
That was also his final year in club football, as hoeneß bid farewell to the beautiful game after a wonderful 14 year career.
Legacy
Hoeneß spent his entire career at Germany, scoring 192 goals in 432 appearances. Although European glory devastatingly evaded him twice, the German still managed to have an impressive career that saw him win several major titles.
The German forward managed to win 8 major honours during his 8 years with Bayern, which included 5 Bundesliga titles and 3 DFB-Pokal honours. He was also the top scorer in the 1979 DFB-Pokal, 1980 Europa League, and 1982 UEFA Champions League.
Although Hoeneß couldn't make the same impact with the international side, his heroics at club level ensure that he'll always remain as one of the finest strikers in German football history. His outstanding abilities as a player played a key role in Bayern's domination of Germany during the 80's, and he will always be remembered as a club legend.
