It was already night at home in Germany when Karl-Heinz Schnellinger made a decision in the heat of Mexico. He looked at the stadium clock, “a huge thing,” as he later described it, saw that the game time was up, and thought: “What else do you want at the back?”
The answer: nothing. And so the defender, who had seen the German team’s unsuccessful push for an equalizer against Italy in the last line, took long strides to the front – unnoticed by Gianni Rivera and Roberto Rosato, his colleagues from AC Milan, with whom he had won the European Cup the year before. They knew that the blonde German had never scored a goal in five years at Milan.
Millions of tired eyes in Germany, despite dwindling hope, still staring at their television sets, noticed how suddenly this stocky figure appeared in the picture, i.e. in the Italian penalty area – and how exactly now a final cross fell from the left.
Neither Schnellinger nor anyone else had time to think about what happened next. It just happened. While falling, or rather sitting down, half awkwardly, half gracefully, like someone whose deck chair has been pulled out from under him, he directed the ball into the goal to make it 1-1. And with his only goal in 13 years as a national player, he turned a frustrated kick into a game of the century.
Huberty im Höhenrausch
Even the otherwise sober ARD commentator Ernst Huberty spoke himself almost into a frenzy and uttered the unforgettable words, in somewhat choppy portions: “Schnellinger of all people / the Italians will say / Schnellinger of all people / it is unbelievable.”
All of this will probably remain forever if you remember Karl-Heinz Schnellinger, who died in Milan on Whit Monday at the age of 85. He couldn’t save his team from defeat with his goal; at the end of the most famous extra time in World Cup history it was 4:3 for Italy. But the fact that people were already talking about the “game of the century” back then and are still doing so – that is primarily thanks to Schnellinger.
Unforgotten: Italian defender Tarcisio Burgnich (right) consoles Karl-Heinz Schnellinger after the 3-4 defeat in the 1970 World Cup semi-final.dpa
Of course it would be unfair to reduce him to that. The native of Düren played four World Cup tournaments for Germany, but, like Uwe Seeler, belonged to the generation that was still too young in 1954 and too old in 1974 to be part of Germany’s World Cup triumphs.
And because the world-class defender had his greatest success in Italy, where he won eight titles with AC Milan, including three European Cups, his achievements were often only marginally noticed at home. “It always seems to me as if I am a foreigner in Germany – and in Italy too,” Schnellinger told the German Press Agency three months before his death. “But that’s okay.”
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More state games than Bundesliga games
He was already a national player at the age of 19 and was part of Sepp Herberger’s 1958 World Cup team, becoming German champion with 1. FC Köln in 1962 and “Footballer of the Year”. He would have been one of the stars of the Bundesliga – but Serie A had more to offer. He moved to AS Roma for 1.12 million deutschmarks, including a deposit of 300,000 marks – an unimaginable amount of money compared to what could be earned in Germany, because even after the premiere of the Bundesliga in 1963 they were free The job market for professional footballers is still a long way away.
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Paragraph 18 of the first Bundesliga statute capped the players’ basic salary at 500 marks per month and, including bonuses, at a maximum of 1,200 marks. Many players initially continued to practice the profession they had learned and appeared in front of the ball as butchers, greengrocers or doctors.
It was only in 1974, two years after the salary caps were abolished, that Schnellinger unexpectedly returned to Germany at the age of 36 to become head of defense and captain for the newly promoted TB Berlin. But he was no longer reinforcement. After a season with 89 goals conceded and relegation, he ended his great career, which, thanks to Berlin, had a unique record: more than twice as many international matches (47) as Bundesliga games (19).
He then returned to his adopted home of Italy, where he has not been forgotten to this day. “The TV commentators loved him above all because of his shock of blonde hair, which could still be seen even when it was foggy in the San Siro stadium,” recalls the “Corriere della Sera”. And the “Gazzetta dello Sport” calls out to him: “Football is losing Karl-Heinz, the Italian German. He left quietly, just as he said goodbye at the end of the legendary Italy-Germany match.”
