Golz asks ... Gerd Müller

Mr Müller, why will Germany be the world champions in 2006?
 
I don’t think that our boys will be the world champions. I hope they will be among the top four. But as a consolation, I am no good at predicting the future. I often bet five euros on final scores of matches that are already underway and I’m usually wrong. Perhaps it’s the same with my opinion of our national team.
 
Only one year to go till the World Cup. Do you feel any sort of early excitement? 
 
The Confederations Cup will put me in the right mood. But otherwise, I don’t feel anything yet. That will gradually build up. But I think Jürgen Klinsmann, coach of the German national team, ought to start playing his chosen starting line up for the World Cup soon. A team has to get used to playing together. That creates security. Yet, he chops and changes.
 
You used to run on with a Bavarian unruffled calm - or were you just acting cool?
 
You gradually get more and more nervous before important matches. But that disappears on the pitch. In my case, though, I always played in good teams. That makes you calm automatically.


You have survived some bad patches playing in the national team.
 
I still remember clearly. We were playing at the stadium on Grünwalder Straße, where the spectators were standing very close to the pitch. Angry at my poor playing, I cursed out loud: "If my play is as sh*t as this, what am I doing in the national team?" The next day it was there in the newspaper, and Schön, the then coach of the national team, said: "Then I can’t let you play." But he wanted to put me on as a substitute if Franz Beckenbauer came off the pitch. That did not really work as regards position, but that is what he did. Once I was on the pitch, it was no time before the ball was in the net. We beat France 5:1, and my crisis of form was over.
 
You are Germany’s best goal-scorer of all time. Exactly where is the monument to you?
 
Monument? Nah, there’s no monument. I don’t need one.
 
You were nicknamed "Bomber der Nation" (Bomber of the Nation) and "kleines, dickes Müller" (short, fat Müller).
 
I liked Bomber better. My former coach Cajkovsky called me “short, fat Müller”. And, of course, it was meant very nicely.
 
Mr Müller, in the World Cup final 1974 you scored the deciding goal against Holland to produce a 2:1 victory. Would you still be able to find that exact spot in the stadium today?
 
Absolutely. That goal is often shown on television. Anyway it is still there in my head. If I look at it, I often ask myself: How did you get it in the net? I always get goosebumps when I think about it.


And how was it exactly?
 
(Gerd Müller jumps up and re-enacts the scene on the table, although he doesn’t have any football miniatures in front of him). So, there were three Dutchmen here. I move and they follow. I go back, they stay. The ball comes in from the right from Bonhof. It bounces away from my left foot...
 
I’m sorry? You didn’t kick it away on purpose?
 
No, no, it bounced away from my left foot onto my right foot. I turn and shoot immediately. Of course, as a striker, you know where the goal is ...
 
You have scored goals from all positions. Today strikers usually use brute force when shooting at goal.
 
That is what I reproach them for. They just boot the ball and often hit the goalkeeper. Sometimes you have to slip or lift the ball into the net too. The main thing is for the ball to end up behind the line. Small goals count too.
 
You are the coach of the FC Bayern amateur team. What advice do you give the young people for their future?
 
I have shown them my tapes, but you can’t learn that, you can only improve. Bruno Labbadia was the only one to have played similarly. Otherwise, there’s nobody.
 
Honestly, though, Mr Müller, with the many goals that you have scored, one has to ask oneself: Were the defenders at that time really bad or were you really good?
 
I was really good, obviously. At that time, in the middle of the pitch, you still had the central defender and sweeper against you. That was terribly tight. Now they play using a back four. I would have scored more goals using that system. But I scored enough goals anyway.
 
Which was actually your best, and which was your most important goal?
 
The 2:1 in the World Cup final was the most important, of course. But I scored my best goal in a repeat match of the 1974 European Cup final against Atletico Madrid, making the score 2:0: Cross by Kapellmann - but I’m not totally sure - I stopped the ball with my chest and volleyed it into the net.
 
(Comment by editorial staff: The first match finished 1:1, the second 4:0 for FC Bayern, goals scored by: Müller and Hoeneß, 2 each)
 
How has the system of play changed compared with the 1970s and 1980s?
 
We still played five strikers then, or at least three. Now they play two strikers, often only with one. And with the back four used today, there is always one man extra at the back compared with before. Previously, when our Franz (Beckenbauer) moved to the front as the sweeper, Zobel or “Bulle” Roth had to cover him. Central defender “Katsche” Schwarzenbeck was never allowed to go ahead.
 
As a coach you work more in the background than before. Have you found happiness?
 
Yes, a hundred per cent. I have just extended my contract by five years to 2010. Then I’ll be 65. Then that’s it.


From the 1974 World Cup team Uli Hoeneß became the top manager of the German Premier League (Bundesliga), Franz Beckenbauer became a world champion as a coach, among other things, and Berti Vogts became a European champion as coach of the German national team. Would you have liked to have achieved something similar?
 
No, I am totally satisfied. I cannot do management. I’m not suited to it. My career will have a perfect ending as a coach alongside Hermann Gerland in the amateur team.
 
And what is your current state? Does your kicking leg still itch from time to time? 
 
No, it doesn’t itch anymore. I play tennis. Besides, I have a totally bad back. I wouldn’t be able to play football anymore anyway. Tennis is good. Sometimes I feel a bit of gout. But if I didn’t move at all, I wouldn’t feel well at all.
 
________________________________________________________________________
 
Gerd Müller:
 
Born on 3 November 1945 in Nördlingen, trained profession: weaver.
 
Müller scored 365 goals in 427 German Premier League (Bundesliga) matches, more than any other player (2nd place: Klaus Fischer with 268 goals).
 
He scored 68 goals in 62 international matches (2nd place: Rudi Völler and Jürgen Klinsmann each scored 47 in 90 and 108 matches respectively). No international player scored as many goals as he did at World Cups: 14 goals (1970 in Mexico 10, 1974 in Germany 4). Müller was seven times goal scoring king of the German Premier League (record: 1970/71 with 40 goals), he scored four or more goals in eleven league games.
 
With the German national team, he became a European champion in 1972 and a world champion in 1974 (after that he retired from the national team).
 
With FC Bayern he won four German cups and four German Football Association (DFB) cup victories. He won the European Cup four times, the World Cup once. Gerd Müller was the first German player to be chosen as Europe’s footballer of the year (1970).