The German Football Museum in Dortmund has become a little more about the longing for football romantics this spring. “Netzer – The 1970s” is the name of the title of an exhibition that has been kidnapped in a decade since last night that still embodies “good old days” in football for many fans. And in the Günter Netzer the longing player, also for those who did not hold it with Gladbach.
It was one of these moments that shut down with great force. Not from the depth of the room this time, but from a small podium on which Günter Netzer was sitting. So something happened that was not to be expected. Because an overwhelmed, sobbing networker had never been expected over the years full of headlines. Not if there was anything to celebrate. And especially not if there was something to mourn.
Günter Netzer: “I feel killed”
But this 80 -year -old live on 1000 square meters of projection surface and various canvases in all colors and facets in just 25 minutes – that was too much for Netzer. “I feel totally killed”he whispered almost tonelessly into the microphone by moderator Sven Pistor. And there was no doubt that this was the truth. To describe his own speechlessness, meant for the man who “Actually said everything that is to be said”that evening a new dimension of the public and openness.
This picture and quotation tower through Netzer’s life really has it all. For months, it was worked on incredible meticulousness and empathy. For museum director Manuel Neukirchner and his multi -headed team, a real effort that repeatedly rubbed the question: How was Netzer perceived in public and what was his self -perception? This area of tension, which still exists today, determines a rapid journey through the 70s, which has never existed.
Many colorful memories
But why is that? Why are the 70s a decade to date that arouses feelings of happiness? Maybe it is also due to the colors of back then. Orange, green, red or brown. The 70s remain in memory as the first continuously colored decade. With color television, with bright colored fast cars (also from Netzer), with colorful detergent flowers above the washing sink in the kitchen, with red and yellow cards in football and with courage to choose color in the choice of clothes.
And with footballers who have long since performed more than well -shaped average types. Johan Cruyff, Franz Beckenbauer, Paul Breitner, George Best, Mario Kempes and of course Netzer, who was on the road like a dressman, even when Mönchengladbach was still pointed to his indecently long hair.
“I think there is no footballer with whom you can explain this time as well as with Günter Netzer”said museum director Neukirchner. “The time of the unadjusted individualists. For many a wonderful football time. For many a paradise from which you don’t want to be driven out. And I like to join in.”
This would explain the most important motives for this soccer retro show, which is now shown in the museum opposite the Dortmund main station until October. A chapter of German social history is described, which, like the “Wunder von Bern”, can be told very understandably in football.
Netzer and the Feuilleton
In fact, it was the case that the feuilleton began to be interested in football at the beginning of the 1970s. With his long blond hair, its proximity to film and television creators and his penchant for fast cars and also because of its appearance, Netzer urged himself to explain the change in society based on the changes in football.
“It flattered me a lot. I found it wonderful that there were people who found such words for me and my football that I would never have been able to find”he said. Netzer still has this clear voice, this precision in its sentences, which always find the safe path to its end.
And Netzer is still on the road with this enormous joke, with this gift, not to take himself and his interlocutors seriously. However, Netzer in Dortmund made a glorious exception. And here, too, his voice stalled because the memory of his early days at Real Madrid is still not a beautiful one.
Netzer and Paul Breitner – pretty best friends
The Breitners had started in their family at the time after Paul had also moved to the Spanish capital. And so Netzer thanked the couple Hilde and Paul Breitner to have helped him in Madrid to have a social network excited to him. “I can’t thank you enough”said Netzer, and Breitner had long since risen the water in the eye in the foyer.
Netzer was a lot. He was a football playing Beau and a cool businessman. He was a role model and idol for a youth who wanted to live out her contradictions against the adult world. He looked like a rebel and yet was the most sensitive on the pitch that could not trust his strengths without the unconditional support of his team. This is quite certain why Netzer always felt more comfortable in the club than in the national team.
Netzer: “I am doing better than I really was”
But one thing never wanted to be one: a revolutionary, a 68er. Although he always publicly overturned with his then Gladbach coach Hennes Weisweiler, the political left did not want to be taken from the Lower Rhine for a long time. And: his game was as exciting and unpredictable – the networker without soccer shoes always knew where and how a little more money could be earned.
It is probably still the attraction of the soccer players Netzer to this day: on the ball he was a bold dreamer, maybe even a poet. To this day, he is still a clever, sober sentence seeker and a man from whom you would never accept the “you” as a fan. A man who still believes today: “Now that I no longer play, I think I’m doing better than I really was.”