The event that caused a sensation worldwide that week took place two days before the one who was doing. On April 27, 1972, a constructive vote of no confidence against Chancellor Willy Brandt, who had lost the majority, failed in the Bonn Bundestag. The exact circumstances were only clarified decades later.
- How was it with Netzer and the depth?
- Maier threatened to say goodbye to Munich
- a tournament, in the middle of the season finale
- Netzer und Overath
- world champion football was a step backwards
It was a day on which the nation held the breath. Brandt, started in 1969 as a chancellor of a social-liberal coalition with the intention of “more democracy” and decorated in 1971 for his reconciliation policy with the East with the Nobel Peace Prize, fended off the attack by the CDU/CSU opposition, whose candidate Rainer Barzel only 247 votes from the MPs could unite, two less than necessary. Two Union politicians, this was immediately speculated and actually came to the public eye after the fall of the wall, had been lubricated by the Stasi and voted against Barzel.
It has not been handed down whether the rather sensitive pleasure person Brandt two days later at Rotwein and Zigarillo in the evening in the evening to take a look at the German national team’s European championship game against England. But it is possible. Because even if the fourth Chancellor of the Federal Republic cannot be called a football fan in the classic sense, he rarely missed important games. Brandt liked to put his feet up when governing allowed it. And recovery did necessary during this time. Economic stagnation, creeping inflation, oil crisis, increasing unemployment in the coal and steel industry after years of full employment – the 1970s were difficult, dramatic and tragic in excesses.
Anyone who had been protested on the street in the “Roaring Sixties” now made a large part on the long march through the institutions. A splinter group that got deeper into the whirlpool of ideology and violence, pulled a bloody trace of terror by the decade as a red army faction. While in the foreign policy of the ice -cold war between the blocks, above all, thanks to Brandt’s “Change by approaching” – unforgettable by the Chancellor Kniefall in Warsaw and the ratification of the East contracts, combined with travel releases in the GDR – experienced a little thaw, it became domestic polish Dramatic with the sad and unfortunately only preliminary climax of the massacre of Israeli athletes and officials during the 1972 Olympics in Munich.
How was it with Netzer and the depth?
While the men’s hair grew longer and the skirts of the women shorter, a writing avant -garde with Ror Wolf and Wolf Wondratschek discovered football for literature. And Günter Netzer, the Playboy with the blond mane, grew to the symbol of the new, modern and inspired German football. The game in London on April 29, 1972 also set standards in literary standards, but only over a year later. In 1973, the then cult of cult of the FAZ, Karl Heinz Bohrer, visitors to the Wembley Stadium for the World Cup qualification game England against Poland, wrote a sentence that is repeatedly quoted incorrectly. He did not write: “And Netzer came from the depth of the room”: He wrote, as the taz explained to the taz,: “The networker suddenly moved from the depth of the room had thrill.” There was little to feel before the game.
According to tradition, the fact that the later “Wembley-Elf”, which was baptized in this way two days after the Triumph Brandts, celebrated their own great victory in this quarter-finals, was not foreseeable shortly before the start of the game. “If we get fewer than five pieces, it is a wonderful result,” Günter Netzer whispered at the time to the Darob, however, franz Beckenbauer in the cabin. What followed this fearsome oracle on the “holy” lawn of the world -famous stadium in front of 96,800 spectators surprised as well as the failure of Barzels. But why Netzer’s pessimism?
The designer: Günter Netzer (right) towered over in Wembley. Imago Images/Werek
On the eve of the game, there was indeed several indications that there should be little to harvest in Wembley for Helmut Schön’s team. Netzer’s black painting may have been exaggerated. But she was not for no reason. The cracks that the Bundesliga scandal had added to the foundation were still deep. In addition, there were immense atmospheric disorders between the players of FC Bayern and Heinz Flohe, the last remaining Cologne in the squad. The background: Less than three weeks before the international match in London, both clubs carried out the quarter-final secondary in the DFB Cup on April 12, 1972. A mandatory task for the Munich team should be mine in the face of the clear 3-0 win in the first leg. But that evening a dynamic developed in the Cologne cycle track, which finally tore FC Bayern off his legs. In the end it was 5: 1 for the Cologne, ugly scenes every minute clouded the joy little.
Bayern hit it hard: Wolfgang Sühnholz had to be carried out of the square with a broken leg. Manfred Seifert, who stood in the goal for the injured Sepp Maier, suffered a double rib break after repeatedly hard attacks and in the end the Bavarians hurled the Cologne, especially Flohe, only conceivable accusation. He was suspected of having struck Franz Krauthausen in the face by brutal punch. The unsightly matter was never clarified, intensive conversations under Schön’s mediation brought a castle peace as a result. So a lot of Munich frustration had accumulated in the ten days between April 12 and 22. First the five wadders in Cologne, then a 0: 2 at the Glasgow Rangers and thus the end of the European Cup winner’s European Cup, finally and finally in the league a 0: 3 bankruptcy at MSV Duisburg, which brought first place.
Maier threatened to say goodbye to Munich
Because Maier was accused of mistakes both in Glasgow and Duisburg, he suddenly questioned everything after the embarrassment of the zebras: “It is out. I will leave Bayern. The train has been driven off,” raged the otherwise funny Sepp, “Even if we become a master, I’m gone in summer.” The injuries of important players such as Wolfgang Overath, Wolfgang Weber, Berti Vogts and Karl-Heinz Schnellinger, the noise of Bayern with Flohe, in addition to 10 games in 36 days, this blatant phase of weakness of the Munich, who are with six players (Maier, Beckenbauer, Schwarzenbeck, Breitner, Hoeneß, Müller) should form the scaffolding of the national team – this scaffolding of all places wiggled like a lamb’s tail before the game of the year.
In addition, on the match day, a bursitis was added to the suffering of Sepp, from which Helmut Schön, who was considered to be overly cautious – was not allowed to experience anything into the esophagus at every Job message like a cascade. In the end, only Maier, team doctor Professor Hanns Schoberth and Masseur Erich Deuser and replacement goalkeeper Wolfgang Kleff knew. Maier was given a foam association, played and held as usual.
Now in the Netzer: The eight-part series for the European Championship victory in 1972. Netzer
The overall condition of top football in Germany did not suggest that Volksport number one was faced with the most successful time. The bribery scandal, uncovered in the summer of 1971, still hung like a thick gray cloud over the not even ten -year -old Bundesliga. The trials against the sinners continued to dominate the headlines, in which ARD the journalist Dieter Gütt was in a hate speech dressed as a comment: “Initiated say today: the bribes have been running for years. Only now (…) has opened the locks. Television will have to consider whether it should continue to broadcast such criminals nonsense that is called football. ” Gütt was not anyone, he moderated the world mirror, later led the Tagesschau and founded the daily topics. An opinion -strong man who wanted to kick football from the public (what he, we know today, of course not succeeded).
a tournament, in the middle of the season finale
Das Zuschauerinteresse erlahmte nach den Betrügereien rapide, rund 3000 Fans pro Partie kostete der Skandal die Klubs allein im Oberhaus, von durchschnittlich 20.661 Zuschauern 1970/71 ging es runter auf 17.932, und in der Saison nach dem gloriosen EM-Gewinn wurden sogar nur noch 16.378 Tickets im Schnitt verkauft. Dass die Liga damals mit dem Premium-Produkt von heute nichts zu tun hatte, belegt die Terminierung der Spieltage um die EM-Austragung herum. Der 29. Spieltag fand am 21. und 22. April statt, anschließend ging der Kader in die Vorbereitung. Der 30. Spieltag wurde auf den 5. und 6. Mai terminiert, danach ging es erneut in die Vorbereitung, es wartete das Rückspiel gegen England am 13. Mai. Mit dem 0:0 in Berlin machte das Team von Helmut Schön die Qualifikation für das Viererturnier in Belgien klar. Zunächst aber wurden die Spieltage 31 (19./20./27. Mai) und 32 (3. Juni) absolviert. Nach dem Gewinn des EM-Titels fand dann Spieltag 33 statt, am 23./24. June.
Eine solche Terminierung um ein Turnier herum wäre heutzutage undenkbar, ärgerlich vor allen Dingen für die Klubs, die keine Nationalspieler stellten und keine Einnahmen verbuchten und gezwungen waren, über die Dörfer zu tingeln. Bizarr das Schicksal von Siggi Held, dem einzigen Profi in Schöns Auswahl, der in der Regionalliga (zweithöchste Spielklasse) spielte. Als Linksaußen in Wembley war er an allen drei Toren beteiligt. Beim Endturnier in Belgien fehlte er. Aber weder gesperrt noch verletzt, nein, Held spielte mit Netzers Offenbach um den Aufstieg in die Bundesliga. Unvorstellbar, aber wahr. Und Beleg dafür, wie die UEFA “ihr” Turnier organisierte. Heute ist die EM nach Olympischen Spielen und der Fußball-WM das drittgrößte Sportereignis weltweit. Damals war es ein Mini-Turnier, irgendwie dazwischengeschoben, alles andere als ein Höhepunkt der Saison.
Bei der WM 1970 hatte sich Deutschland bereits für das Finale von 1966 revanchiert. imago/Sven Simon
Auch auf europäischer Klub-Ebene war mit dem deutschen Fußball kein rechter Staat zu machen. In den Cup-Wettbewerben glänzten andere Nationen, die Niederlande etwa mit Ajax Amsterdam, das den Europacup der Landesmeister verteidigte. Alles in allem: Bonjour Tristesse und eine Gesamtentwicklung, die an der Substanz kratzte und am Selbstbewusstsein. Kein Wunder, dass auch der Netzer nach der Auslosung für die Viertelfinals im Januar 1972 stöhnte: “Schlimmer ging’s nicht – ENGLAND”. Der Respekt vor dem Mutterland des Fußballs war traditionell riesig in Deutschland, selbst die Tatsache, dass man seit 1966 nicht mehr gegen die Three Lions verloren hatte, änderte nichts an der klassischen Kaninchen-Haltung. Bereits knapp vier Jahre vor Wembley, am 1. Juni 1968, gelang der bundesdeutschen Nationalelf der erste Sieg überhaupt in der gemeinsamen Länderspiel-Historie.
Franz Beckenbauer hieß der Torschütze zum entscheidenden 1:0, der Kölner Wolfgang Overath hatte das Team als Kapitän in Hannover auf den Rasen des Niedersachsenstadions geführt. Zwei Jahre später setzte die deutsche Mannschaft ein dickes Ausrufezeichen und bezwang im Viertelfinale der WM in Mexiko den Titelverteidiger mit 3:2 nach 0:2-Rückstand. Beckenbauer, Seeler, Müller – die Torschützen standen für eine Mannschaft, die trotz des Ausscheidens im Halbfinale gegen Italien (3:4 nach Verlängerung) ganz Deutschland begeisterte und sich weltweit Respekt erarbeitete. Nur einer fand darin nicht so recht Platz.
Netzer und Overath
Günter Netzer, der Gladbacher Superstar, tanzte in der Nationalelf nur dieses eine Frühjahr 1972 lang. Und es passt, dass die Konstellation wohl in erster Linie deshalb zustande kommen konnte, weil Netzers Freund Overath verletzt ausfiel. An einem gesunden Overath wären Netzers Ambitionen mit ziemlicher Sicherheit zerschellt, dies belegt auch dessen Einschätzung: “Wolfgang Overath, mein Konkurrent auf der Spielmacherposition, war der wesentlich bessere Nationalspieler. Seine Besessenheit habe ich nie gehabt. Hinzu kam, dass ich mein vertrautes Umfeld, das ich in Mönchengladbach hatte, vermisste. Ich brauchte meine Mitspieler von Borussia, sonst fühlte ich mich nicht wohl.”
In diesem April aber war der Weg frei, und die Inszenierung konnte beginnen. Das Spiel gegen England lockte zwischen Flensburg und Konstanz 22 Millionen Menschen vor die TV-Geräte, über 12.000 Fans hatten die Reise über den Kanal angetreten und unterstützten das DFB-Team vor Ort. Vom Anpfiff weg – für ungefähr 30 Sekunden – geriet die deutsche Mannschaft tatsächlich schwer unter Druck. Was diesem temperamentvollen Auftakt der Engländer dann an deutscher Überlegenheit folgte, paralysierte die Gastgeber zusehends. Uli Hoeneß’ Führungstreffer fiel zwangsläufig, Schöns Elf agierte wie ein Boxer, der seinen Gegner immer wieder mit Jabs stoppte und zermürbte.
The English storm run largely fizzled out after the break because the Germans playing in green jerseys found an answer to every attack. The compensation by Francis Lee did not change anything. Again and again Netzer, Held and Grabowski needles, after a foul on the Offenbacher, networker transformed the due penalty, Gerd Müller set the final point with the 3-1. There was no weak point in the German eleven. But two symbolic figures: Franz Beckenbauer and Günter Netzer primarily released German football from the accusation of force vibration on April 29, 1972. The blowing blonde of the Mönchengladbacher seemed like the start flag into a new age of German football.
Great joy: Germany celebrates the lead goal by Uli Hoeneß (Wed.). imago images
Where used to get stuck and bolted, exactly played passes are now torn in deep gaps in every defense. Where balls for many years determined the rhythm, Beckenbauer, Netzer and Müller danced through the rows of defense in a double and triple pass. Objection! Because this picture distorted reality. Germany always had good footballers in every generation. Also world level technicians such as Fritz Walter, Helmut Haller or Wolfgang Overath. The Cologne native was named the best midfielder of the World Cup in Mexico in 1970. What the German own and was often confused with power me: the ability to turn a game only to accept a result when the opponent was showering in the team bus. A virtue that had a lot to do with his head, less with her feet.
world champion football was a step backwards
It was the mixture it made. Especially since the 72 team also consumed from the force, presence and perseverance, which played players like Hoeneß, Paul Breitner, Jupp Heynckes or “Eisenfuß” Horst-Dieter Höttges. Not to mention Hacki Wimmer, the Gladbacher, who looked like beyond the 50 and about the networker after every game: “It always hurt me when I have to read that he was my water carrier. He was a really good technician who was Hook could hit like no other and he was also dangerous. ” A praise that Wimmer certainly liked to hear, but the reality never left this reliable colleague: “Günter was my friend, I always liked to run for him. Thanks to him, I made a career that I would never have thought of.”
Sometimes there are no technical or even scientific explanations why a large team is “born”. This was exactly what happened on this wet and cold Saturday in London, where a weakened embarrassment team laid the foundation for their most successful time. Never before had a team succeeded in having both the world and the European championship cup in the showcase. A national team never previously dominated. “A win that only exist once,” the Netzer headed back then. Karl-Heinz Heimann, editor-in-chief of the Netzer, wrote: “I hope that the word of German power football, which was never right, has now finally disappeared into the moth box.” A wish that did not come true.
Germany became world champion two years later. But the greatest success to achieve no longer primarily based on play and lightness. Helmut Schön, known in his autobiography, later: “If I am extremely nostalgic and want to see really good football, then I put on the cassette ‘England 72’, sit down on my sofa and indulgence.” The sporting value of 1972 outshone everything.
If the World Cup also got into a triumph, it meant a step backwards not only for the football aesthet. Netzer played a full 20 minutes throughout the tournament, with the bankruptcy against the GDR. And bad. He had his strongest appearance in the final training before the final when he simulated Johan Cruyff and played great. Too late. At that time, the Chancellor was no longer branded. He resigned two months before the final on May 7, 1974. His successor fit better with the pragmatic, new, old German style of play. “Whoever has visions,” said Helmut Schmidt once, “should go to the doctor.”
Weuern stories and details about Germany’s first European championship title you have been able to read in our eight-part Netzer series for the 50th anniversary since Monday-also in the Netzer Emagazine app (Android or Apple).