![]() ![]() You see, his footballing prowess and stellar career are unquestionable but a little banal for our tastes on this site. You will not be surprised, this being Some Green Grass And A Ball, that there is about to be a twist in the tale of this offering on Lothar Matthäus. It was a gem, a beautiful statement of excellence from a great of the game at his peak, and it would also have been to the forefront of the judges’ minds when they awarded him the Ballon d’Or that year. With a view, between two defenders, of Tomislav Ivković’s goal, the number ten drew back his hammer of a right boot and let fly with an arrowed shot to the bottom left hand corner. ![]() As he gets to about 35 yards out, he adroitly skips past the desperate lunge of Jozić, the sweeper, and moves towards the edge of the D. It was a goal in the very first match against Yugoslavia, however, that remains his Meisterwerk. Receiving the ball in his own half from Klaus Augenthaler, Matthäus, marauds threateningly into space, living up to his nickname. Andreas Brehme, who along with Jürgen Klinsmann was one of a trio of Inter Milan stars in Die Mannschaft, made no mistake, however, and West Germany were champions of the world. There was genuinely something superhuman about Matthäus in that tournament, even if he did pass on the decisive penalty in the final. The captain, of course, scored his spot kick and even consoled the vanquished English, in an act of rare magnanimity towards a foe. One recalls the spittle-fest against Frank Rijkaard’s Dutch chums and the dramatic penalty shoot-out against Bobby Robson’s England, in particular. ![]() Playing 5 of 7 games on what was, for him, the home soil of the San Siro, the Inter man scored goals, made passes, won tackles and set an example for Franz Beckenbaur’s talented squad as they left Holland, Czechoslovakia, England and finally, poetically, Argentina, in their wake before Matthäus held the Jules Rimet trophy aloft.Īn imperious Matthäus took the tournament by storm, scoring four goals and skippering his side by example in some trying circumstances. A player who had it all, the West German skipper was a model of power, poise, grit and refinement. If Maradona was the iconic figure of ’86, Matthäus was surely the star four years later. This time around, as his country’s captain, he seemed the living embodiment of steely determination and inspirationally lead his country’s determined push to make it third time lucky. At 29, he still had another decade at the highest level ahead of him and 11 years already clocked at the top for Borussia Mönchengladbach, Bayern Munich and Inter Milan.ĭer Panzer had made the West Germany squad in 1982, when they were defeated in the final by Italy and he had been assigned the unenviable task of man-marking Diego Maradona in the 1986 final, again finishing in defeat. Well, indeed a Lothar will, and a Lothar did, mostly.Īs the man who would earn 150 caps for his country bestrode the stage of World Cup 1990, in what must surely be one of the greatest football kits ever, he was at the very peak of his prowess. I hate that.” With an even more pungent whiff of arrogance, the Bavarian, tellingly referring to himself in the third person, once opined, “a Lothar Matthäus will not be defeated by his body, a Lothar Matthäus will decide his fate himself.” “The worst thing I can be,” said the Austrian stogie-fancier, “is the same as everybody else. Like a pair of Terminators doggedly and unwaveringly grinding onwards, irrespective of the threat of liquid metal upgrades or plotting Klinsmanns, they have had only one imperative – to win and be the best. No, it was something about the relentlessness of their characters, the absolute drive to rise to the very pinnacle of their crafts and remain there. ![]() It wasn’t just that the two men were so dominant in their respective fields and it wasn’t the aloof, square-jawed, Teutonic air of self-regard they both shared, either. Despite the passing of three decades, and with all three of us showing signs of decrepitude, this association between the legendary German footballer and The Governator remains in the forefront of the Downey noggin. The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer.”Īs the 80s became the 90s, in my teenage mind, there was an unavoidable connection between Lothar Matthäus and Arnold Schwarzenegger. “For me life is continuously being hungry. ![]()
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