DThe three possibly most important words in German football were spoken on July 4th, 1954. In Spiez on Lake Thun, the DFB footballers were having lunch in their World Cup quarters in the “Belvedere” hotel when Max Morlock from Nuremberg stared through the window and screamed electrified.
“Friedrich, it’s raining!”
Friedrich, that was Fritz Walter. “We were just gnawing off the bones of our chickens at the table,” the captain described the moment of happiness later. He liked wet grass, his ball skills were perfect on slippery ground. National coach Sepp Herberger also winked: “Fritz, your weather.”
It was weather to make heroes. And we Germans urgently needed new heroes. The old ones were dead.
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