The great aesthete of German football turns 80

Among the great German footballers, no one is harder to grasp than Günter Netzer. This may seem paradoxical at first glance, because Netzer is a prominent man. Someone who not only achieved merit as a footballer, but was also a popular mediator as a TV analyst. And yet the Zurich resident, who turns 80 on Saturday, remains the great mystery of German football.

Back in the 1970s, he had plenty of competition: firstly, the brilliant Franz Beckenbauer, who was everybody’s darling until the bribery scandal surrounding the 2006 World Cup caused him to fall from grace with his fellow countrymen. And of course Wolfgang Overath from Cologne, with whom he fought for years for a place in the national team’s midfield.

They were opponents only on the pitch. The professional Netzer – and this is exactly what sets him apart from his contemporaries on the football pitch – was much more than a successful playmaker. He was the target of many projections. “Rebel on the ball” – that is the title of an early Netzer biography. The title merely reflected the general impression. Anyone who takes a closer look at Netzer, however, soon comes to the conclusion that rebelliousness was neither a pose nor a motive. It was simply an attribution. Netzer was smart enough to leave such labels uncommented.

When Boninsegna fell to the ground as if struck by lightning

Borussia Mönchengladbach: This was Netzer’s club, with which he celebrated championships and cup victories, often in a lavish style that was almost unique in Europe. The club was denied the big win, winning the European Cup, but its failure was magnificent: in 1971, Gladbach humiliated the great Inter Milan with a 7:1 victory at their home ground, Bökelberg. But the match was annulled because a spectator threw a can of Coke onto the pitch and striker Roberto Boninsegna fell to the ground as if struck by lightning.

Only Ajax Amsterdam, led by the great Johan Cruyff, played as spectacularly as Gladbach. Their national rival, FC Bayern, seemed calculating and sluggish in comparison to Borussia, which attentive interpreters of the zeitgeist used to construct a pair of opposites.

And so Netzer became the protagonist of feuilletonist observations, which culminated in a phrase that still stands today: “Netzer came from the depths of space.” This sentence is a variation of what Karl Heinz Bohrer, then the “FAZ” cultural correspondent in London, wrote about Netzer: “Netzer, who suddenly advanced from the depths of space, had ‘thrill’. ‘Thrill’ is the result, the unexpected maneuver; it is the transformation of geometry into energy, the explosion in the penalty area that drives you mad with happiness, ‘thrill’ is the execution itself, the beginning and the end.”

In 1972, in the European Championship quarter-finals, he played his best international match

Bohrer was not a second-rate columnist, but one who was on the verge of becoming one of the most important German intellectuals. His fascination with Netzer was fueled by the national team’s 3-1 victory against England in the 1972 European Championship quarter-finals at Wembley. At that time, Netzer actually came out of the depths of the pitch and played his best international match for Germany. One of only 37, but the impression was lasting: Bohrer’s lines were the beginning of what was later called the football column in Germany. They contributed to the final glorification of the long-haired playmaker.

The following year, he made an appearance that is almost unique to this day: In the final of the German Cup, Netzer substituted himself in during extra time against 1. FC Cologne. The afternoon was a negative one for Netzer: his mother had died the week before, and it had also been announced that he was about to move to Real Madrid.

Ernst Huberty, a brilliant TV commentator before he became “Mister Sportschau”, opened his report with a summary of the situation: “The most important information straight away: Mönchengladbach is playing without Günter Netzer. He is sitting on the reserve bench with the number twelve. He doesn’t fit into our concept, some say, others say he is behind in training. Thirdly: the young players, the youngsters are against him. Some also think he is a secret weapon. We will see.”

The fans were against Netzer

That was how things were back then when Netzer was about to leave Mönchengladbach. The mood among the fans was against Netzer, says Rainer Bonhof, his teammate in Gladbach and in the national team. However, things were different in the team: “Günter actually wanted to go home in the morning after he found out that he was not in the starting eleven. We players then said: ‘We need you, even if you are only sitting on the bench.'” Given the 30 degrees in Düsseldorf’s Rheinstadion, this was understandable.

So it happened that coach Hennes Weisweiler asked Netzer to go on the field after the first half. But Netzer waved him off: substituting him now would be pointless.

It was only in extra time that Netzer saw his moment had come. He asked his colleague Chris Kulik whether he could continue, but Kulik said no. So Netzer went to Weisweiler and said: “I’ll play now.” His first touch of the ball resulted in a one-two with Bonhof. And Netzer hammered the ball straight into the corner. An incredible goal, even by his standards. Netzer later admitted that he hadn’t hit the ball properly.

He didn’t like headers

Netzer’s gesture in his last game for Borussia: a rebellion against authority, as was in keeping with the spirit of the times? To this day, the 1973 cup final shapes the impression of the director, of whom many say that in his best days he was as good as Cruyff. Athletic, a strong dribbler, fast and dynamic. The only thing he didn’t like was headers, as Netzer once said with amusement: he might as well have played handball.

Despite his Ferrari and his own nightclub, Netzer was by no means the rebel of football. And despite his impressive art collection, he was not what his admirers wanted to see in him, as his biographer Helmut Böttiger says: “Everyone knew that Netzer was actually apolitical, and everyone knew that Netzer was not a great cultural citizen or intellectual.”

The image that was created around him, however, invited misinterpretation. Karl Heinz Bohrer also saw it this way: In the “TAZ” newspaper, he explained that he would not have been unsympathetic to see Netzer as “left-wing”. But he never saw him as a political figure. Bohrer saw in Netzer what Netzer could most easily relate to: the aesthete on the football field. And as such, he remains unrivaled to this day.