The greatest German striker of all time is dead. Gerd Müller remains unmatched with his goals. He later overcame an alcohol addiction and got back on his feet at FC Bayern until Alzheimer’s disease shaped his last years.
The comfort zone in Gerd Müller’s life was exactly 665.28 square meters. Because as a footballer, the only 1.76 meter tall striker was the king of the sixteen meter space. When the “bomber of the nation” got the ball near the goal, it usually boomed.
No German attacker before and after him reached his class. Nobody scored that many goals. It crumbled in practically every game. The penalty area striker Müller did his job in the stadiums in an inimitable way: He hit lightning fast from the turn, falling and sitting, with left or right and with his head. No matter. The sixteenth was his realm. Müller died early on Sunday morning at the age of 75, as his former club announced.
FC Bayern Munich mourns Gerd Müller
“Today the world of FC Bayern stands still,” said club president Herbert Hainer. “The news of Gerd Müller’s death affects us all deeply. He is one of the greatest legends in the history of FC Bayern, his achievements are unmatched to this day and will forever be part of the great history of FC Bayern and all of German football.” said the CEO Oliver Kahn and promised: “Gerd will be in our hearts forever.”
“Gerd Müller was the greatest striker we had in Germany,” said ex-national coach Joachim Löw in 2015 on the 70th birthday of the goalscorer. This judgment applies after his death. Even the day of honor of the world champion (1974), European champion (1972) and by far the most successful scorer in the Bundesliga (365 goals in 427 games) had to be celebrated without any major celebrations. The sad reason: Gerd Müller had Alzheimer’s. He had lived in a nursing home for years. There he was looked after professionally until the end.
Memory is lost in the insidious disease. The nature of the person concerned changes. FC Bayern made the serious illness public a few weeks before Müller’s 70th birthday. The fate of Müller, referred to by many as “bomber”, touched many people in Germany beyond the football scene.
On her 75th birthday, Uschi Müller spoke about her husband’s state of health. “He has always been a fighter, has always been brave, all his life. He is now too. Gerd is sleeping towards his end,” she described in the “Bild” newspaper.
Football idol Uwe Seeler, who has long been Müller’s storm colleague in the national team, spoke of sadness when he found out about Müller’s illness. Uli Hoeneß called the old comrade’s lot terrible. For the club sponsor of FC Bayern “der Gerd” was always more than a great footballer. Above all, he is “a fine person” for him.
Hoeneß, who stormed alongside Müller in the great Bavarian times in the 1970s, was one of those who were there and resolutely helped even in the greatest life crisis of the sporty professional who was so successful. Because Müller did not dominate life off the pitch like the ball and the pre-stopper in the penalty area.
Gerd Müller defeated alcoholism
The victory over his alcoholism in the early 1990s was probably the most important in the life of the trained weaver from Nördlingen. “After four weeks I came out of the cure. To do it in such a short time, that was quite an achievement,” said Müller proudly at a meeting in Munich in autumn 2007. At that time he worked as assistant coach for the Bayern amateurs at Hermann Gerland’s side.
Later world champions such as Philipp Lahm, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Thomas Müller or Toni Kroos benefited from his wealth of experience. It was a task that the down-to-earth miller fulfilled, made happy and contented. “The club is everything to me,” he said at the time.
Despite Franz Beckenbauer, despite Uli Hoeneß – FC Bayern owes its steep rise to number 1 in German club football in particular to Müller’s goals. “What FC Bayern represents today, with this palace on Säbener Strasse – without Gerd Müller, people would still be in this wooden hut from back then,” is a sentence with which Beckenbauer liked to describe Müller’s meaning: “In my eyes he is the most important player in the history of FC Bayern. “
World champion Miroslav Klose always emphasized the unique. When he replaced Müller shortly before the 2014 World Cup in Brazil after 40 years as the national team’s record scorer, Klose said: “Gerd Müller cannot be compared to any other striker.” Klose is characterized by a fine quality that was also inherent in Müller: modesty.
The now 43-year-old leads the DFB rankings with 71 hits. Klose needed 137 internationals for the record. Müller scored 68 times in just 62 games for Germany – a phenomenal rate of 1.1 hits per use.
At the 1974 World Cup, Gerd Müller scored the winning goal
He scored the goal for eternity at the end of his DFB career, which ended far too early. In the 1974 World Cup final, he scored 2-1 against the Netherlands in the Munich Olympic Stadium. “I scored nicer goals, but the most important thing was this world championship goal,” he said.
When Müller watched his successors after his career, which ended ingloriously in the USA in 1982, he always asked himself the same question if a shot or header did not land in the goal. “Would you have put that in?” Probably yes. Müller’s 40 goals in the 1971/72 season were almost half a century in the Bundesliga. Last season, today’s Bayern striker Robert Lewandowski surpassed him. The world footballer from Poland scored 41 goals.
When Müller moved from the Swabian amateur league club TSV 1861 Nördlingen to FC Bayern in 1964 at the age of 18, his goals were rewarded with a basic salary of 160 marks a month. Today he would be showered with millions of euros. But a profile life in times of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and daily media hype would have been more of an horror than a stroke of luck for Müller.
Müller was a world star, but not one for glamor and red carpets. He never envied “Den Franz” his status as a figure of light. Beckenbauer continued to rush around the world after his playing career. “I’m not someone who likes to be away from home,” said Müller when he was feeling even better. On FC Bayern Champions League trips, he let his heart club harness him as an attraction for sponsors and noble fans. That was enough attention for someone like him.
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
