GERD MÜLLER Full Name: Gerhard Müller. Born: 3 November 1945 in Nördlingen/Germany. Nickname: Der Bomber. Position: Centre forward. Caps: West Germany 62 (1966-1974) / 68 goals Domestic League Games: West Germany 427 (1965-1979) / 365 goals USA 80 (1979-1981) / 40 goals Domestic Cup Games: German Cup 62 (1965-1979) / 78 goals European Cup Games: 74 (1966-1978) / 64 goals International Club Cup Games: European Champions Cup 35 (1969-1977) / 34 goals European Cup Winners’ Cup 25 (1966-1972) / 19 goals UEFA Cup 14 (1970-1978) / 11 goals European Super-Cup 3 (1975-1976) / 3 goals Intercontinental Cup 2 (1976) / 1 goal European Footballer of the Year: 1967 (7th), 1968 (20th), 1969 (3rd), 1970 (winner), 1971 (6th), 1972 (2nd), 1973 (3rd), 1974 (7th), 1975 (17th), 1976 (9th) German Footballer of the Year: 1967, 1969 Clubs TSV Nördlingen (1954-1964) Bayern Munich (1964-1979) Fort Lauderdale Strikers (1979-1981) Smith Brothers Lounge Fort Lauderdale (1981-1982) Trophies won (compact version): 1 World Cup 1 European Championship 4 German league titles (with Bayern) 3 European Champion Cups (with Bayern) 1 European Cup Winners’ Cup (with Bayern) 1 Intercontinental Cup (with Bayern) 4 German Cups (with Bayern) 1 time European Footballer of the Year 2 times German Footballer of the Year 7 times Top League Goal Scorer Trophies won (detailed version): World Cup: 1974 European Championship: 1972 European Champions Cup: 1974, 1975, 1976 European Cup Winners Cup: 1967 Intercontinental Cup Winner: 1976 German Champion: 1969, 1972, 1973, 1974 German runner-up: 1970, 1971 German Cup winner: 1966, 1967, 1969, 1971 German Cup runner-up: - U.S. Champion: – U.S. runner-up: 1980 Top League Goal Scorer: 1967, 1969, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1978 World Cup Participation: 1970, 1974 European Championship Participation: 1968*, 1972 * = active only in Qualifiers. Gerd Müller started to play for Bayern Munich in 1964 at the age of 18. Bayern was not his first choice as he always dreamed as a boy to once play for 1. FC Nuremberg, because his idol had always been Nuremberg inside right Max Morlock. But when he contacted Nuremberg`s manager, he was told that they already had three Müllers and couldn`t use another one (true story). Müller had scored massive amounts of goals for his hometown club TSV Nördlingen, which raised the interest of several Munich clubs, among them Bayern and TSV 1860. Bayern won the race to sign the bulky, burly little forward. It took a while before Müller was considered for first-team action by manager Zlatko Cajkovski, but when he finally made his first match in October 1964, he scored two goals right away. Bayern was still playing in the regional Southern German league at that point and were competing for a place in the newly created Bundesliga for the second year in a row. The young Franz Beckenbauer also played his first professional season for Bayern that year, and soon the two developed a partnership that would shake the foundations of German and European football. Bayern were promoted the following summer and in their first Bundesliga season managed to reach the third position in the final table. The following year would prove to be Müller’s and Bayern’s break-through year, with his club winning the German Cup for a second time in a row and the European Cup against Rangers in Nuremberg, while Müller won his first Bundesliga top goalscorer title with 28 goals. He would go on to win this title for a record 7 times during the next 11 years. That year, he was also awarded “German Footballer of the Year”. He received his first cap against Turkey in October 1966, taking the place of injured Uwe Seeler, but it wasn`t before April 1967 that Müller would score his first goals for West Germany against Albania in his second match (4 goals in a 6-0 win). By 1969, Bayern had become the dominating team in West Germany after winning the league and the Cup and Müller winning his second “German Player of the Year” trophy after scoring 30 goals for Bayern in the league and scoring 9 crucial goals for West Germany in the 1968-69 World Cup qualification. 1970 would become Müller’s first ‘annus mirabilis’, when he scored 10 goals for his team in 6 matches at the Mexico-held World Cup, most of them in his unique way, which was dubbed ‘Müllern’ (to ‘müller’ a goal) by German journalists. Müller rarely scored spectacular goals from outside of the penalty box, his area of expertise were ‘little’ goals (as Germany manager Helmut Schön put it), scored from all possible situations, laying on the ground, while sitting, while falling, standing, with his left and his right foot, with his knees, even with his bottom and with his belly, with his thighs, and of course with his head, for Müller, despite being quite small, had massive muscular legs which helped him become a dangerous heading player. Müller scored so many goals he soon earned the nickname “Der Bomber” (though ‘bombing’ was not his specialty). Despite his habit of mostly scoring ‘little’ goals, Müller was a technically sound player who could also lob the ball into the goal and who excelled in neat 1-2s played with his teammates Franz Beckenbauer and Günter Netzer of Borussia Mönchengladbach (some of them being 3-4s rather than just 1-2s). His most common way of scoring goals, however, was the famous turn-and-shoot-in-one-move, which he perfected and in which he scored probably the majority of his goals throughout his career, as well as his most famous goal, the 1974 World Cup final winning goal against Holland. His performances in 1970 (World Cup top scorer with 10 goals in 6 games, Bundesliga top scorer with 38 goals in 33 games as well as Europe`s top goal scorer), proved so impressive, he became the first German player to win the prestigious “European Player of the Year” award. The next four years Müller was about to reach the pinnacle of his career, with 1972 and 1974 being the cornerstones. 1972 was to become his second ‘annus mirabilis’, when he set a new Bundesliga record scoring some 40 goals (in 34 games), and was very instrumental in West Germany winning the 1972 European Championships, when he supplied almost all of the goals to the dazzling play of Beckenbauer, Netzer and Breitner. That season, Müller scored 64 times in 47 competitive matches (for Bayern and West Germany), including 11 goals in 9 European Championship games. He also wound up winning the Bundesliga with Bayern three times in a row from 1972 to 1974, and in each of those years he would score over 30 goals in the Bundesliga and over 50 goals in all competitions combined. In May 1974, Müller scored two exceptional goals against Atletico Madrid in Bayern`s 4-0 win in the Champions Cup final, but his biggest triumph would come July, when he helped West Germany beat the seemingly all-conquering Dutch in the Munich final by scoring the crucial 2-1 just before half-time. He decided to quit the German team after that ultimate win, having scored 68 goals in 62 matches. Müller kept on playing for Bayern successfully, helping to defend the Champions Cup in 1975 and 1976. And despite suffering two severe injuries in 1975 and 1977, he kept on scoring goals like no other German player before or after. After Beckenbauer left in 1977 to play for Cosmos, things deteriorated for Bayern rapidly. In the 77-78 season, Bayern had to struggle against relegation, but an ageing Müller still ended up scoring 24 goals, winning the top scorer trophy for the last time. When he was subsituted due to poor form for the very first time in his career on February 3rd, 1979, an era in German football was about to end, for Müller was so hurt in his pride, that he immediately decided to leave Bayern for good and to follow Beckenbauer to America. He only played one more Bundesliga match for Bayern (February 10th, 1979 against Dortmund) before signing a contract at Fort Lauderdale Strikers on March 9th. Prior to that season, Müller had publicly announced that he planned to end his career by the end of the 1979-80 season which he later regretted, as he felt that the new (and relatively unknown) manager Pal Csernai wanted to strengthen his position by acting like the strong man in dethroning the legend, Gerd Müller. During his Bundesliga career, Müller had scored 365 goals in 427 games for Bayern, an all-time record. He would be voted “Greatest Ever Bundesliga Player” 25 years later in a huge poll among German football fans, which Müller himself considered to be his greatest victory. Although he enjoyed some success in America by reaching the 1980 NASL final (losing against Beckenbauer`s Cosmos), he found it more and more difficult to score even in America, and decided to call it quits in 1982 (after having joined regional team Smith Brothers Lounge Fort Lauderdale). Gerd Müller was arguably the greatest marksman of the modern, low-scoring era of world football. Testimony to his goal scoring prowess is the fact that he topped the goal scorers’ chart in every tournament he participated in, be it domestic or international: Gerd Müller is still the top World Cup goal scorer (14 goals), the best scorer in the European Championships (16), the top goal scorer in all European Cups (64), the top Bundesliga goal scorer (365), the top goal scorer in the German cup (78), and of course his national team`s top goal scorer (68). His record at international tournaments like the World Cup, the European Championship and the Champions Cup is especially staggering, scoring 64 goals in just 60 games at the highest level. During his career, he scored 21 hattricks, four quadrotricks and two quintotricks (only counting competitive games). Seven times did he score five goals in one match, 15 times four goals and 35 times three goals in a single match (only counting competitive games here). In the light of these figures, it did not come as a surprise when Franz Beckenbauer once expressed his gratitude towards his long-time teammate by stating that “everything we became, all the trophies we won and triumphs we enjoyed, we owe only to Gerd Müller”. For those further interested in his goal statistics, please check the Gerd Müller Goal Story League Statistics per Season Season - Club - Games – Goals [ Caps / Goals ] 1964/65 Bayern Munich.............regional 1965/66 Bayern Munich.............33 / 15 1966/67 Bayern Munich.............32 / 28 [ 3 / 4 ] 1967/68 Bayern Munich.............34 / 19 [ 2 / 2 ] 1968/69 Bayern Munich.............30 / 30 [ 7 / 9 ] 1969/70 Bayern Munich.............33 / 38 [13 / 12] 1970/71 Bayern Munich.............32 / 22 [ 7 / 10] 1971/72 Bayern Munich.............34 / 40 [ 9 / 14] 1972/73 Bayern Munich.............33 / 36 [ 5 / 6 ] 1973/74 Bayern Munich.............34 / 30 [16 / 11] 1974/75 Bayern Munich.............33 / 23 1975/76 Bayern Munich.............22 / 23 1976/77 Bayern Munich.............25 / 28 1977/78 Bayern Munich.............33 / 24 1978/79 Bayern Munich.............19 / 09 1979.... Ft. Lauderdale Strikers...27 / 19 1980.... Ft. Lauderdale Strikers...36 / 16 1981.... Ft. Lauderdale Strikers...17 / 05 1981/82 Smith Brothers Lounge...regional International Club Games 1966/67 Bayern Munich.....EC II........09 / 08 1967/68 Bayern Munich.....EC II........08 / 06 1969/70 Bayern Munich.....EC I.........02 / 00 1970/71 Bayern Munich.....UEFA Cup..08 / 07 1971/72 Bayern Munich.....EC II........08 / 05 1972/73 Bayern Munich.....EC I.........06 / 11 1973/74 Bayern Munich.....EC I.........10 / 08 1974/75 Bayern Munich.....EC I.........07 / 05 1975/76 Bayern Munich.....EC I.........06 / 05 1976/77 Bayern Munich.....EC I.........04 / 05 1977/78 Bayern Munich.....UEFA Cup..06 / 04
Probably the greatest goal machine ever. If him and Jimmy Greaves had ever been in the same side the opposition might have just aswell packed it in and gone home to do the ironing.
Here is a link to the master thread of profiles. https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=232370
My, My, My. All the clubs/teams who missed glory because they didn’t have one. It’s one of the most underrated skills in the game. It’s a skill that is all about soccer intelligence, positioning, timing and creativity. He didn’t score golazos, but he scored 10 in a World Cup. I’ll take that any day.
Gerd Muller without a doubt is one of the best Goalscorers ever, but people compare his 1970/1974 World Cup campaign to Pele 1958/1970 to Diego Maradona’s 1986 World Cup. Because of goals!
1 Excellent write up my man ruhe in Frieden Der Bomber 2- Lincoln they compare Muller to Pele and Maradona not just becuae of goals but because they all were world cup champions. Yes Muller has 1 to Pele's 3 and Maradona's 2 but the 1974 team beat the mighty Holland team, led by Johan Cryuff also ruhe in Frieden 2- Do you need another person to write for the Germany section? I have a BS in Sports Journalism, from an American university but