Tor! Quotes

“It was a fittingly heroic end to this final. Because regardless of all the titles Schalke would come to collect, the most lasting legacy of this side was the creation of a concept (a myth, if you like) that permeates German football and especially the Ruhr to this day – that of honest, close-to-the-people, proletarian football. Nearly all the Schalke players had been raised in or near Gelsenkirchen, and the majority had known each other since early childhood. Most had worked either down the pits or at the steelworks, and many continued to do so while winning championships in their spare time. As if that weren’t enough to make them a close-knit group, they were also family in a very literal sense. Fritz Szepan was married to one of Ernst Kuzorra’s sisters, reserve player Fritz Thelen to another. Szepan’s own sister was the wife of Karl Ambriss. The wives of Ernst Reckmann and August Sobottka were cousins. In 1931, Ernst Kuzorra married the daughter of the man who ran the club’s pub. Winger Bernhard and goalkeeper Hans Klodt were brothers (though they only played together for a few years).”
― Ulrich Hesse-Lichtenberger, Tor!: The Story Of German Football

“Germans can organise a party, but they can’t have one.”
― Ulrich Hesse-Lichtenberger, Tor!: The Story Of German Football

“In fact, so miserable was the Germans’ international reputation that Girulatis had to inform the press that the English, the masters from whom everyone wanted to learn, had told the DFB that their Amateurs would no longer play Germany annually and would prefer it if future games took place in Germany, as English crowds just weren’t interested enough. ‘They said our performances are too modest,’ explained a sad Girulatis”
― Ulrich Hesse-Lichtenberger, Tor!: The Story Of German Football

“Young Schuster could have been the answer to many of West Germany’s problems. So good was he that Barcelona came in with an offer only three months after the European Championship. Schuster had fallen out with his club coach and so the country’s best prospect went abroad at a tender age indeed. Schuster stayed in Spain for 13 years, proving he feared nothing and nobody when he moved from Barça to Real Madrid – and then from Real to Atlético Madrid. Later, the Spanish press voted him the best foreigner ever to grace their league, ahead of Alfredo Di Stefano and Johan Cruyff.”
― Ulrich Hesse-Lichtenberger, Tor!: The Story Of German Football

“A journalist watched this final in a Cologne pub that was frequented by both Germans and Englishmen. ‘It was weird,’ he later said. ‘The Germans all rooted for Manchester, the English were all urging Bayern on!’ It was natural, not weird, as Bayern were still as unloved in their own country as Manchester United were in theirs. But the instant Ole Gunnar Solskjaer scored the winner, the mood changed. It seemed too cruel to lose a match under such circumstances, even if the losers were Bayern. Also, after winning three European Cup finals they should have lost, the once lucky Bayern had now lost three they should have won. Hitzfeld took defeat in his stride, and the image of this gentlemanly coach congratulating Ferguson despite being hit so hard altered the picture some people had of Bayern as a club of cold egotists.”
― Ulrich Hesse-Lichtenberger, Tor!: The Story Of German Football

“In February 1982, Uli Hoeness was the sole survivor of a plane crash that killed three of his best friends. ‘That day, the sunny boy in me died,’ Hoeness later said, but people who know him well claim it was rather the egotist in him that died. Under his guidance, Bayern slowly and often secretly would now also become what the writer Dietrich Schulze-Marmeling has called a ‘welfare organisation’. No German club played more benefits and did more to raise money for those in need than Bayern. And when Markus Babbel left the club for Liverpool under less than amicable circumstances in 2000, he always let it be known he would never speak badly of Hoeness. ‘Among the top clubs in Europe, Bayern are the most humane,’ Babbel said. ‘They have always shown generosity when there were problems. Take Alan McInally, who became an invalid and didn’t have any insurance. The club said: we’ll give you severance pay. They practically gifted him the money. Our business manager is somebody you can talk to about such things.”
― Ulrich Hesse-Lichtenberger, Tor!: The Story Of German Football

“No, Bayern did not extend their empire through money, or at least not through money alone. Actually, for quite a few years playing the big spender was never even an option for the club, as they just didn’t have the necessary funds.”
― Ulrich Hesse-Lichtenberger, Tor!: The Story Of German Football

“how was Beckenbauer to be used? With hindsight, Schön should perhaps have agreed with his assistant coach Dettmar Cramer, who argued that it would rob West Germany of a major creative force to have Beckenbauer mark Bobby Charlton. Then again, Beckenbauer readily agreed when Schön gave him orders to follow England’s play-maker – and hindsight is perfect but useless vision.”
― Ulrich Hesse-Lichtenberger, Tor!: The Story Of German Football