It was low for the front center position. He measured 1.76. But he seemed lower even because he had short and thick legs, powerful, with a thigh diameter of 64 centimeters. From fallen shoulders, in addition, it was an insult to the proportions. But that appearance somewhat chubby and antiesthetically hid, with all their barned weapons and all their resources ready, to one of the biggest scorers in football history.
Nicknamed "Bomber" and "Torpedo", Gerhard (Gerd) Müller, there are no nuances to define his style of play. He was a scorer. And nothing more. And nothing less. A scorer. With his head, despite his short stature. With both legs. A scorer with a flashing speed of rotation and acceleration capacity in short sections. On a tile. At one hundredth of a second. Without Florituras, without technical beads. Simple. Effective. Direct. With instinct. With smell. With precision. A scorer: Gerd Müller.
"What do you want me to do with a weight lifter?" He asked, bewildered, Zlatko Cajkovski, the Yugoslav (Croatian) Bayern coach of Munich when, in 1964, they led to his presence a 19-year-old kid, of Quadriceps Hypertrophied, from TSV Nördlingen, an insignificant Bavarian team, representative of the people in which the boy had been born. "Let him play," he replied, giving him a tip more than an order, the president, Wilhem Neudecker.
Cajkovski took, however, in doing so. He did not convince him the pint of such Müller or impressed him the 180 goals (as it sounds) that he had marked in a single season with the small and medieval Nördlingen team. Bayern was something else. It is true that it was second, but there were still classes. The need and what he saw in the workout forced him to align the boy, whom he called "the Gordito Müller", 10 games after they deposited him in his hands.
And that Müller no longer abandoned the ownership until 14 years later, he left to the United States, the Fort Lauderdale Strikes, to get the last economic performance to his sports career (it would still mark, in three seasons, 40 goals in 80 matches). He left behind an annotating figures behind: 356 so many in 467 games of the Bundesliga, from which he was a maximum gunner on five occasions. In the course 71-72 he scored 40 goals in the championship, record that lasted until Lewandowski, with 41, beat him the last season. In the Natural Year of 1972 he established a mark of 85 goals that would only come to overcome Messi, with 91, in 2012. With Bayern him he would, in all competitions, 582 o'clock.
In the World Cup in Mexico70 it was the maximum filmmaker with 10 as many in six meetings (same amount as in the eurocose triumphant of 72). In Germany74, he would mark four, including victorious 2-1 of the final against Holland. He was twice gold boot (1970 and 1972) and a golden balloon (1970). He would target three glasses of Europe with Bayern, which would decisively contribute to defining and placed as one of the great teams of all time.
In that 1964 of his arrival he coincided at the club with a couple of young people called Sepp Maier and Franz Beckenbauer. The first was a senior year. The second, of his age. Supported in them, on that splendid axis, a goalkeeper, a central defense and a front leader, the Bayern ascended to the Bundesliga and began his mythical journey in German and world football. According to Beckenbauer, that glorious time of the club, which laid the foundations of his permanent prestige, was due to Müller more than anyone else.
Bayern's hatching was also the German selection, united to it until almost forming a single body, compact and identifiable. Müller constituted a fundamental element in both. The influence and importance of the scorer in a golden age of German football completely admits few paralangons. The commitment of those men inspired those who succeeded and did Bayern, too, an almost familiar entity.
In 2015 it was reported that Müller had been suffering for years suffering from a severe Alzheimer's. As Puskas, the other great scorer of the twentieth century. A tragic coincidence.
Date Of Update: 15 August 2021, 11:19
