EM countdown: Ingenious troop: How the Pope helped Germany win the title

The 1980 European Championship in Italy is primarily characterized by outstanding, young talents, who are, however, not very easy in their nature. While Matthäus and Schuster make the headlines, final scorer Hrubesch prefers to go to the Holy Father.

“The young talents had exceptionally great potential and were ready to give everything,” said national coach Jupp Derwall after the 1980 European Championship in Italy, which the DFB team as a deserved winner (“The German team played terrific. It simply couldn’t give another winner “, Cesar Luis Menotti) had left again. And that was also due to Derwall himself, who, after the legendary embarrassment two years earlier, played a completely different kind of football in Cordoba, Argentina against Austria: “I’d rather lose myself in the first game than play defensive football like the one at the opening of the 1978 World Cup to let.”

And that particularly benefited one of the young talents from 1. FC Köln. The “Gazzetta dello Sport” wrote about him: “Bernd Schuster can be Beckenbauer’s successor.” And by this point in time, the young German hopes had probably already copied something else from the Kaiser. Because the young Cologne resident simply accommodated his girlfriend Gaby directly in the team hotel – which not only caused a stir, but above all the national coach understandably didn’t like it at all.

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But Schuster played so big that Jupp Derwall had to swallow this toad. The native of Augsburg was even named the best player of the tournament. But Bernd Schuster was never forgiven for this scandal about his Gaby. When the old top dog Paul Breitner returned to the DFB team a few months later, he immediately had the Cologne in his sights. And Schuster reacted visibly annoyed: “Paule is a cunning dog. He’s not yet holding the team meetings personally. He’s still passing on his orders via Derwall. I wouldn’t be surprised if one day Breitner gave the Derwall a line-up under the Slits through the crack in the door. “

“Neither moo nor muh or gick and gack”

The Bayern captain replied calmly: “He’s acting like me at his age. But who is a playmaker is decided anew in every international match. Whoever is in the best form should do it.” Schuster accepted the ball with thanks: “If Breitner doesn’t make it – he’s physically whistling from the last hole at the moment – then I’ll be there when the need arises.” And he smugly added: “The Breitner problem will be dealt with in a biological way.”

But then the verbal battle finally got worse. National coach Jupp Derwall got involved and called Gaby Schuster after a few schnapps at Hansi Müller’s house inauguration party at 2.30 a.m. and told her what a bad influence she had on her husband. Shortly thereafter, Breitner sent another poison dart to Schuster’s wife: “Bernd is a lovable, young guy, but it makes a huge difference whether you meet him without his wife or with her. In the first case, he is like a little boy,” she says neither moo nor muh or gick and gack; in the second case, however, he quickly becomes a frenzied wild boar. “

Ben Redelings

Ben Redelings is a passionate “chronicler of football madness” and a supporter of the glorious VfL Bochum. The bestselling author and comedian lives in the Ruhr area and maintains his legendary treasure trove of anecdotes. For ntv.de he writes down the most exciting and funniest stories on Tuesdays and Saturdays. More information about Ben Redelings, his current dates and his book with the best columns (“Between Puff and Barcelona”) can be found on his website www.scudetto.de.

Schuster said goodbye to the national team shortly afterwards. And so the European title from 1980 was to remain the only triumph of the German talent of the century Bernd Schuster in the jersey with the eagle on his chest.

The vacation problem of Lothar Matthäus

The career of another just 19-year-old young star in the national team had lasted longer – significantly longer. A certain Lothar Matthäus made his debut at this European championship in 1980 for his home country. It was already 3-0 against the Netherlands that day when captain Ennatz Dietz made a decision: he wanted to help the young talent make his first appearance in the national jersey with this score.

And so Dietz faked an injury and enabled Matthäus to make his debut in the dress of the national team. The fact that the game ended 3-2 for Germany after the shaky final minutes was not necessarily due to the inexperienced national team newcomer Matthäus, as Dietz once said with a smile, but he still owed the penalty to make it 3-1.

But Dietz also had something else to say about Matthäus: “Lothar cried bitterly on the day of the nomination. I stood next to him and was completely helpless. At first I thought he would shed tears of joy, but then he never stopped . I put my arm around his neck and asked very carefully what was going on. Then Lothar looked at me with reddened eyes and sobbed: ‘But my girlfriend has already booked our vacation for the time of the European Championships … ‘”

Hrubesch saw him

As is well known, Matthäus went with us – but he found it difficult to hide his heartache, as he told the “Fußball-Magazin” in one of his first big personality stories: “I phoned my fiancé Silvia twice a day, and then I met annoyed for the first time, because the hotel charged such high telephone charges that I would soon have collapsed in shock after the first bill. I had barely a minute on the phone with Silvia when they wanted to pull over 6000 lire out of my pocket, that was about 14 Marks. “Am I a multimillionaire?” I asked the person at reception. From that moment on I collected coins everywhere and tried to do it from the public telephone. Only it usually didn’t work. It stank But somehow I managed to call Silvia twice a day. “

The fact that the DFB-Elf left the stadium in Rome as a winner against Belgium on June 22, 1980 was mainly due to one man: Horst Hrubesch. And the man from the Westphalian town of Hamm, whom they nicknamed “headball monster” when he started out in Essen, made no secret of whom he owed the strength for his two final goals: the Pope!

You read that right, to the Holy Father himself. And that happened as national coach Jupp Derwall remembered in his book “Football is not an easy game”: “At some point, after the goalless game against Greece in Turin, after we had reached the final of this European Championship, Horst Hrubesch faced me again. I closed both eyes. I only heard ‘go town’ – ‘an hour’ – ‘the last time’ – ‘back on time’ and so on and so on. After much deliberation, after a long time I said only: ‘An hour “Accompanied, and back to the hotel on time.” Although I wasn’t sure that this would make any sense, I was there after half an hour waiting for the player, then he came, punctual and easy, with a smile that made me curious he exclaimed: “Coach, I saw him! I saw him, the Pope, coach! I saw the Pope, really, very close up.” Horst looked happy, satisfied and full of gratitude. “

And with this good, blissful feeling, Hrubesch finally shot the German team to win the title on June 22, 1980. Two years after the memorable afternoon in Cordoba against Austria, the DFB-Elf seemed to be back on the right track. But that turned out to be a big mistake four years later. Especially for the national coach Jupp Derwall.

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