Walter Bechtold is a former German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 professional footballer.

Bechtold began his professional career in 1965 with Eintracht Frankfurt

Eintracht Frankfurt

Eintracht Frankfurt is a German sports club, based in Frankfurt, Hesse that is best known for its association football club.- Club origins :...

. The midfielder

Midfielder

A midfielder is an association football position. Some midfielders play a more defensive role, while others blur the boundaries between midfielders and forwards. The number of midfielders a team uses during a match may vary, depending on the team's formation and each individual player's role...

 scored 33 goals in his four years with the club, but was never a first-team regular. In 1969 he transferred to local rivals Kickers Offenbach

Kickers Offenbach

Kickers Offenbach is a German association football club in Offenbach am Main, Hesse. The club was founded on 27 May 1901 in the Rheinischer Hof restaurant by footballers who had left established local clubs including Melitia, Teutonia, Viktoria, Germania and Neptun...

 in the Regionalliga

Regionalliga

Regionalliga is a designation in Germany for sports leagues, which are led by one or more regional federations. Regionalligen often fall below the Bundesliga and 2nd Bundesliga of a given sport...

. With Kickers he had his most successful season; the club being promoted to the top flight as champions and winning the DFB Cup

DFB-Pokal

The DFB-Pokal or DFB Cup is a German knockout football cup competition held annually. 64 teams participate in the competition, including all clubs from the Bundesliga and the 2nd Bundesliga. It is considered the second most important national title in German football after the Bundesliga...

 against 1. FC Köln

1. FC Köln

1. FC Köln is a German association football club based in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia. It was formed in 1948 as a merger of the clubs Kölner Ballspiel-Club 1901 and SpVgg Sülz 07....

. This saw the team qualify for the next season's European Cup Winners' Cup, where they were knocked out in the first round by Belgian side Club Brugge K.V.. Bechtold played for a year in the Bundesliga

Fußball-Bundesliga

The Fußball-Bundesliga is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of Germany's football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. It is contested by 18 teams and operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the 2. Bundesliga...

 with Offenbach before being relegated back to the regional league. After one season back in the lower division, he moved to SV Darmstadt 98

SV Darmstadt 98

SV Darmstadt 98 is a German association football club based in Darmstadt, Hesse. The club was founded on 22 May 1898 as FC Olympia Darmstadt. Early in 1919 the association was briefly known as Rasen-Sportverein Olympia before merging with Darmstädter Sport Club 1905 on 11 November that year to...

. He returned once again to the Bundesliga in 1978 with Darmstadt, before being relegated once more a year later. He retired from playing in 1980. During his professional career, Bechtold played in 131 Bundesliga matches, scoring 45 goals.