Hello, we all already know about the great competition between Overath & Netzer in 70s. I want to ask about World Cup 1970! Why Netzer was not chosen to Germany Squad in this World Cup? He was injured or another reason?
Netzer and Schön didn't really like each other, and Netzer was kicked out of the team before the 1970 World Cup. Here's an article from the 70s about Netzer (in German), where he also talks about the 1970 WC: http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-41376745.html
Netzer and Schön made up again though shortly before the 1970 World Cup but then an injury prevented Netzer from making the final squad.
I've certainly not dug as deep into the history of the 1970s teams as you did - but from what I got out of the press reports from back then I got the impression that Netzer's injury was seen as pretty convenient for Schön (e.g. from Die Zeit: http://www.zeit.de/1970/21/helmut-schoen-am-rubikon - it's a shame that most major German papers don't have free online archives like this one). But as I said, I certainly lack your interest in individual players, so I never concerned myself that much with those questions .
Netzer really was injured. Perhaps Schön wasn't too distraught because of that, but without that injury Netzer would have made the squad, as both he and Schön had made up after the incident of the February Spain game (Netzer was right back then by the way, all players played subpar in that game, but Schön publicly singled out Netzer which was obviously ridiculous). Schön couldn't have left out Netzer after they had buried their "feud" publicly. Schön might have feared bad karma if a player like Netzer was to be benched (as Schön preferred Overath in the role of playmaker) but he couldn't have left the best midfield player of the Bundesliga at home, the press would have lynched him, what if Overath had been injured and Netzer was not there? It solely was the injury that prevented Netzer from taking part in the 1970 World Cup.
Just to clarify - I have no doubt the injury was real (maybe I should have mentioned this in my original post in this thread too - I wanted to add that even without the injury there had been some discussion before the tournament, but not negate what squidward wrote). I meant convenient in the same sense as you did in your post - he might not have been all that sad that the matter had solved itself without him having to make the decision. I actually didn't know (or had forgotten, who knows ) that they made up, though.