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Page 1When Günter Netzer came from the depths of space
Page 2 “An accolade for football”
The European Football Championship begins in Germany on June 14th. Until then, we’ll be looking back at the most exciting and bizarre European Championship moments in a new series – and let one picture do the talking in each episode.
Drizzle will welcome the players from Germany and England to Wembley Stadium and will accompany them throughout the game. Her hair is wet, but the grass is perfect for playing on, said Günter Netzer, the footballer in the middle of the picture, later. He is currently playing the white ball between the pursuing Englishmen Norman Hunter (on the right) and Martin Peters. Into the free space, into the empty alley, just as Netzer so often does in a fabulous way in his 26th international match on that Saturday, April 29, 1972 in northwest London. Netzer had the game of his life.
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The German team plays with green jerseys and white shorts and they dominate the game in the first few minutes. This is a bit scary for Netzer because he didn’t expect such a turn of events. Before the match, the director from Mönchengladbach had doubts about the player with number ten. The German team had to replace a number of injured players, and FC Bayern recently had to deal with a puzzling series of defeats in the league. And this club provides six of the eleven players at Wembley.
Netzer doesn’t actually want to go out into the arena with its 96,800 roaring spectators. While still in the dressing room, he pats his colleague Franz Beckenbauer, who is sitting next to him, on the thigh and says: “If we get less than five today, we will have achieved a first-class result.”
Ultimately there will be significantly fewer than five pieces, and everything will be different than Netzer expected. His team wins 3-1 on the island. For the first time, a DFB team wins in England, and at Wembley, where Germany lost the World Cup final against the same opponent six years earlier due to a phantom goal. And now, in the quarter-final first leg of the 1972 European Championship, this team is also playing particularly aesthetic football.
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The Wembley team benefits above all from Netzer and Beckenbauer; they intuitively create an interplay – Netzer rotates at the front, Beckenbauer at the back and vice versa. The tabloids call this “Ramba-Zamba football.” Netzer later admits: “We didn’t tell our national coach Helmut Schön at all. He accepted it.”
Wembley, that 3-1 win, is considered to be the zero hour of a selection that was able to delight in its game and inspire the spectators, but also won the important games and thus combined both the artistic and the important. “That is my criterion for perfect football. This beautiful game was transformed into spectacle, goals and victories,” says Netzer.
The European Football Championship begins in Germany on June 14th. Until then, we’ll be looking back at the most exciting and bizarre European Championship moments in a new series – and let one picture do the talking in each episode.
Drizzle will welcome the players from Germany and England to Wembley Stadium and will accompany them throughout the game. Her hair is wet, but the grass is perfect for playing on, said Günter Netzer, the footballer in the middle of the picture, later. He is currently playing the white ball between the pursuing Englishmen Norman Hunter (on the right) and Martin Peters. Into the free space, into the empty alley, just as Netzer so often does in a fabulous way in his 26th international match on that Saturday, April 29, 1972 in northwest London. Netzer had the game of his life.
