Myth “Wembley 1972”
The best DFB game of all time
By Ben Redelings
4/29/2022, 7:09 am
The evening of April 29, 1972 at London’s Wembley Stadium went down in German football history as the national team’s finest hour. After this unforgettable night, the world raved about a “dream football” from another planet. And a DFB player knew how to inspire that evening!
“Thanks to the Germans, there’s that brilliant football in Europe again that the Hungarians used to show so inimitablely. The Hungarian peak of yore has been reached again!” The “Daily Telegraph” indulged in superlatives on the morning after this legendary evening on April 29, 1972 at London’s Wembley Stadium. The playfully impressive performance of the German national team is still unforgotten – and probably unmatched.
What the DFB team conjured up on the lawn in England’s capital on that heavenly night is still described by eyewitnesses as the most beautiful game of all time by a DFB team. And one man outdid them all that night. “It was Günter Netzer’s greatest game,” said national coach Helmut Schön when asked about those incredible 90 minutes. And the man in the hat knew this game very well, as he once revealed.
“Whenever I’m really nostalgic and want to see really good football, I put on the England 72 cassette and sit on the sofa and reminisce.” National coach Helmut Schön just couldn’t get enough of this almost mythical game of the German national team in the spring of 1972 at London’s Wembley Stadium against England.
“Ramba Zamba Magic Mix”
To this day, the first leg of the quarter-finals at the 1972 European Championship is one of the greatest moments for the DFB team. The unforgettable “Ramba-Zamba-Magic Mixture” (“Image”), conceived and implemented by Franz Beckenbauer and Günter Netzer as a kind of double libero, not only shook the England team, but also inspired the entire international football world. “Dream football from the year 2000”, wrote the French sports newspaper “L’Équipe” and the star of this team, Günter Netzer, later said: “We were very close to perfection at Wembley.”
The Gladbach player probably made the game of his life that day. In brilliant interaction with Franz Beckenbauer, Netzer danced through the English ranks and repeatedly staged his teammates in an inimitable way. Nobody has ever put the genius of this unique moment better into words than the author Karl-Heinz Bohrer: “Netzer, who suddenly pushed forward from the depths of the room, had ‘thrill’. ‘Thrill’, that’s the result, the unexpected maneuver; the is the transformation of geometry into energy, the maddening explosion of happiness in the penalty area, ‘thrill’, that’s the execution par excellence, the beginning and the end. ‘Thrill’ is Wembley.”
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 anecdote treasure chest. for ntv.de he writes down the most exciting and funniest stories on Mondays 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 page www.scudetto.de.
But the authors of the book “The Golden Seventies Football Years” also got enthusiastic about the “gala performance” of the Gladbacher: “Netzer managed everything that evening. He played the game slowly, then quickly again, hit passes over forty meters, played directly , short or long, with a phenomenal sense of distance. Netzer’s game had a touch of genius that night.”
“Team is a miracle team”
After a goal from Uli Hoeneß after almost half an hour, the English managed to equalize late in the 77th minute through Lee. Upside down world at this point. And despite all the German superiority, the encounter could have turned around completely in these minutes. But then came the 85th minute. Penalty for Germany. Actually, Gerd Müller should have started now, but he didn’t feel well. He gave Netzer the ball. Who else should have taken that all-important penalty that day?
But national coach Helmut Schön, the man in the cap, who usually watched the games quite relaxed on the sidelines, was nervous. So tense that when he sat down he missed the bench and sprawled out. Günter Netzer noticed all of this – and yet kept his nerve. He shot the ball so sharply into the left corner that England goalkeeper Gordon Banks managed to get the ball, but it landed in the English goal to make it 2-1. Netzer jumped up, jubilant with relief, and raised his arms to the sky.
Then Gerd Müller put the icing on the cake of this unbelievable game. His goal to make it 3-1 was a typical Müller goal. The Bayern star had four opponents against him – and yet he turned around so skillfully that he was able to sink the ball into the English goal. The next day, “La libre Belgique” wrote: “The Germans are full of ideas, full of invention. In short: this team is a miracle team.”
“Don’t talk about the war, talk about football”
In the intoxication of the unexpected and then so convincing victory, national coach Helmut Schön did not forget to express his irritation at the headlines in the Insel press before the game: “It was quite warlike in the English newspapers, there was talk of Siegfried Line and the tanks. Alf Ramsey was Montgomery and I was Rommel. That’s unfortunate. We’re not talking about war, we’re talking about football.”
But the English were not alone with their martial language back then. Before the final of the European Championship, which the Germans finally won 3-0 against the Soviet Union, the Italian “Gazetto dello Sport” wrote, also using bellicose language: “You should try it against the Germans with a machine gun. Without one you can use them don’t stop.”
But that was the only drop of bitterness in these magical days for German football. The trade magazine “Kicker”, which had been extremely concerned about the DFB team before the legendary game fifty years ago, wrote after the game with reconciliation and delight: “A demonstration of all the skills that make Germany’s national team an absolute world class team let.” And so this evening at Wembley will probably always be remembered as the most beautiful game of all time by a German national soccer team.