Willi Lippens

Willi Lippens

"Ente" Lippens in 1970.
Personal information
Date of birth	(1945-11-10) 10 November 1945 (age 71)
Place of birth	Bedburg-Hau, Niederrhein, Germany
Height	1.70 m (5 ft 7 in)
Playing position	Midfielder
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1966–1976	Rot-Weiss Essen	172	(89)
1976–1979	Borussia Dortmund	70	(13)
1979	Dallas Tornado	25	(15)
1979–1981	Rot-Weiss Essen	67	(23)
National team
1971	Netherlands	1	(1)
Teams managed
1998	Rot-Weiss Essen
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only.

Willi Lippens (born 10 November 1945) is a former German-Dutch football player. He is nicknamed "Ente" (German for "duck") due to his waddling.

Born near the German-Dutch border to a Dutch father and a German mother, Lippens spent most of his career playing for German clubs. He played for Rot-Weiss Essen from 1965–76 and in 1980–81. Between 1976 and 1979 he played for Borussia Dortmund before leaving to play one season for the Dallas Tornado in the NASL (North American Soccer League).

Lippens played in 242 Bundesliga matches, scoring 92 goals, making him the player who appeared most often for Rot-Weiss at that level of play, as well as their top scorer. Lippens also played an international match for the Netherlands, making him one of only six Dutch football players to have been selected for the Dutch national team while never having played in the Dutch Eredivisie. The other capped players are Tim Krul, Jordi Cruyff, Jerrel Hasselbaink, Rob Reekers and Wim Hofkens.

Lippens, who spoke only very basic Dutch, is the only native German-speaker ever to have played for the Dutch national team. Lippens received several invitations to join the German National selection as well, but always declined as his Dutch father had forbidden him to play for Germany. Lippens has said that he would have liked to have played for Germany, but that his respect for his father, and the experiences his family lived through during the Second World War outweighed this.