Otto Siffling

Otto Siffling (3 August 1912 – 20 October 1939) was a German footballer. He was a player for the club SV Waldhof Mannheim. He also played for the Germany national football team, making 31 appearances and scoring 17 goals between 1934 and 1938. He was a participant in the 1934 FIFA World Cup, where he scored a goal. He was the centre forward of the Breslau Eleven that beat Denmark 8–0 in Breslau in 1937 and went on to win 10 out 11 games played during that year.

Otto Siffling was one of the most talented center forwards of the 1930s. An opinionated and exceptionally gifted player, Siffling was a virtuoso on the pitch who impressed with his ingenuity and imagination when on the ball. Being not keen on overly physical play, he was not a traditional center forward, preferring to create more than to score. Taciturn in nature, he did not like to be in the spotlight and ovations at times made him feel uncomfortable. His performance for the Breslau XI in 1937 was the pinnacle of his career. In 1938 his level suddenly dropped inexplicably, so that he was not starting in the 1938 World Cup. A year later he died of a pleurisy aged 27.

In his 1978 book Fussball, Helmut Schön characterised Siffling as follows:

"As a center forward he was not a tank but a playing center forward who still was enormously dangerous in front of the goal; in the famous game in Breslau he scored five goals. He was creating goals and scoring goals."