Recommendations of the Editorial team
On Thursday, May 21st, the German Football Association (DFB) announced the 26-man squad for the World Cup in the USA, Mexico and Canada. It had already been leaked in various leaks that Bayern goalkeeper Manuel Neuer was suddenly back on board after his retirement in 2024.
This isn’t just a blow to the net for the nominal number one, Oliver Baumann from TSG Hoffenheim. Since then, the debate in the fan forums has been heated. The Pro-Neuer decision is being discussed there as controversially and aggressively as the non-consideration of FC Cologne young star Said El Mala – especially since it is faced with the unexpected appointment of striker Leroy Sané, who recently did not show any outstanding performances at his former career club Galatasaray Istanbul.
Neuer’s DFB comeback after almost two years is not an isolated case. National coach Nagelsmann relies on experience – similar to the “Toni Kroos case” at the home European Championships in 2024. After retiring in 2021, Kroos surprisingly played for Germany again before finally ending his active career.
Comebacks in DFB history
Looking back at earlier decades, we are also familiar with such excitement: “Rebel” Paul Breitner returned several times after disputes with the DFB and even led Germany to runner-up in the World Cup in Spain in 1982. After his resignation in 1990, Rudi Völler was persuaded twice more because the team lacked strikers with a snappy mentality. And even record national player Lothar Matthäus celebrated a late “Okay, one more time” in the Germany jersey after conflicts and injuries.
Which makes it obvious to look at pop music.
Tina Turner, Cher, Johnny Cash: The parallels to music
Can one describe Peter Gabriel as the Lothar Matthäus of the powerful “Sledgehammer” hymns? Hardly – not every parallel in the cosmos of rock, pop or techno works. But a little.
Because Tina Turner, Cher and Gabriel celebrated successful returns “to the playing field” after withdrawals or crises. Here, too, it was and is about charisma and the understandable desire to capture special moments again.
Tina Turner experienced what was probably the most monumental comeback in pop history around 1984. After terrible years of abuse by her husband Ike Turner and the resulting creative insignificance, she released the song “Private Dancer” at the age of 44 – four years older than Manuel Neuer is today. She ended up at the German location of her major record company EMI Electrola in Cologne, where she met her future husband Erwin Bach, often dined at the VIP Italian restaurant “Salerno” to the delight of her tabloid colleagues – and rose from the Rhine to become a global superstar.
Another number is Cher. At the age of 52, in 1998, after a long dry spell, she scored the biggest hit of her career with “Believe”. Like Neuer, she proved all the critics who labeled her “too old” wrong – and at the same time revolutionized the sound of pop music using Auto-Tune technology. Quiz question: What is football’s “Auto-Tune”? The legendary ice barrel that Miroslav Klose used to stay fit at Roma for a long time?
Manuel Neuer as Johnny Cash: Through the Ring of Fire?
The most obvious analogy is Johnny Cash and his “American Recordings” from the first year of the World Cup in the USA in 1994. The man in black was written off commercially in the early 1990s at the age of 62 and was in poor health. Hip-hop and Slayer producer Rick Rubin brought him back to the microphone. With just a guitar, Cash proved that his sheer presence, aura and the hardships of life are sometimes irreplaceable. So will Manuel Neuer go through the “Ring of Fire” – or will he be injured in the cup final against VfB Stuttgart in Berlin on May 23rd?
Last, but not least, in a series that could certainly be extended into the indie and alternative sector would be Kylie Minogue. At the age of 55, she scored a strange but nevertheless global mega hit with “Padam Padam”. After a bout with cancer and faltering successes, she returned triumphantly to the forefront. The Australian – who portrayed a water corpse in her compatriot Nick Cave’s video when she was younger – also masters important kicker skills such as anticipation, positional play and mental strength.
