" What happens when watching TV it feels split? [...] happened when Germany played against Germany." It happened, as noted by Gunther Grass in "My Century" June 22, 1974. Fifteen years earlier picconate of the Berlin Wall begins to fall in a summer evening in Hamburg, when East Germany first challenge for West Germany. It 's the third day of the elimination round of the World Cup. Both teams have already qualified for the second phase, but there is much at stake that night more.
The premises
In Germany in 1972 was a difficult year to forget, marked by the tragedy of the Olympics in Monaco and the triumph of national Helmut Schon on the roof of Europe after the Soviet Union 3-0 . Two years later, the Germans are leading candidates to succeed Brazil in the gold World Cup, playing with the advantage of field factor.
The basic structure of the Bayern Monaco arrives Nationalmannschaft: Franz Beckenbauer the flag, the goalkeeper Sepp Meier, the grim marker Hans-Georg Schwarzenbeck, the whimsical Paul Breitner, Uli Honess Handyman midfielder and scorer Gerd Muller.
In a time when the challenges of East and West are nearly normal, Bayern Monaco faces Dynamo Dresden in the second round of the Champions Cup, but surprisingly lost 3-2 at home. Come back rooms now 2-0, 4-0 and reaches across the top of the second half. Ahead 6-3 in the complex, the Bavarians feel safe, but the Dynamo scored three goals in a short time, but the dream fades with the network of qualified Gerd Muller. Bayern then that would have lifted the Cup-eared May 17, shutting down three years of unchallenged domination of Ajax's total football.
other side of the wall of the football star comes only through the TV. In Oberliga, the First Division of East Germany, the movements are restricted and tightly regulated, and transfers decided by the sports minister. There are no salaries, officially the players are amateurs, although in reality the situation is different. The players are paid secret bonuses are recognized as significant to those who can get a result against Dynamo Berlin, the team of the Stasi, the secret police.
The technical level is not, however despicable, so that the Magdeburg, a small team of Saxony, May 8, 1974 reached the final of the Cup Winners Cup . It 's the first team of the German Democratic Republic to play for a continental title. In Rotterdam in front of Milan's Gianni Rivera, the bench headed by Giovanni Trapattoni, who only the year before he stripped the shirt player.
On paper there is no game. On the one hand there is a provincial team, composed of semi-unknown players who knew how to take advantage of a draw that kind has been opposed to the formation of a single survey, the Sporting Lisbon eliminated in the semifinals. The other is the most titled Italian team abroad, but now understands that winning will not be easy. Milan is a tired old team, Rivera can not disguise the inadequacy of the system, the smears and Anquilletti Schnellinger now on Sunset Boulevard, and an attack that can no longer score. Then, at 43 'a fairly innocuous cross was deflected by Lanzi evil that puts behind its doors, Pizzaballa: Magdeburg is the interval 1-0 ahead.
AC Milan fails to respond. Perhaps the Rossoneri were expecting a crushed all opponents in defense, and find themselves surprised by the German football athletic. Good deals for Magdeburg multiply and fifteen minutes from the end Wolfgang Seguin doubles. The Germans won 2-0 and lift the cup.
Seguin is one of the "four musketeers" of that team, along with striker Martin Hoffman, director Jurgen Pommerenke and midfielder Jurgen Sparwasser, with those legs "brevilineo tall" in the words of Gianni Brera and a technique. Constitute the basis of the national DDR, supplemented by Hansa Rostock striker Joachim Streitch and charismatic defender of the Carl Zeiss Jena Bernd Bransch, a few months before becoming a true national hero.
Under the guidance of coach Georg Buscher East Germany have qualified for the World Cup by winning their group behind Romania, Finland and Albania. After a smooth start, the Germans lost 1-0 in Bucharest, May 27, 1973, and are passed over at the top of Romania. The return match in Leipzig became a playoff. Central manage to cram into the stadium 95 000 spectators in ecstasy for the two goals of the master Bransch DDR doors which open to the World Championship. In the last round match of the East Germany beat Albania 4-0 with two goals and goal Streitch Lowe and Sparwasser.
The qualification of East Germany became a political case from the start. In December, the Federation denies coach Georg Buschner permission to attend the draw ceremony in Frankfurt because he fears a flight to the capitalist West. The urn is fun to add more power by putting the two Germanys in the same group, group C, together with Chile and Australia. The "Brother-Duell", the conflict between brothers, is scheduled to last day Volksparkstadion.
The Bruder-Duell
When the two captains Franz Beckenbauer Bernd Bransch and shake hands and exchange pennants, that gesture is loaded with meaning and responsibility beyond the immediate pre-match ritual. They know the twenty-two players on the field, they know the fans who fill the stadium, including the East who have arrived in Hamburg by train on a tourist visa valid only for those 90 minutes. They know the workers, workers who remained on the other side of the wall to watch the game on television. You know the Stasi, the secret police of East Germany, which has sent hundreds of agents mixed with the fans with the order to encourage the team at hand, polite, "7-8-90-10-large." They know the political leaders of West Germany that, two years after the tragedy Monaco have had to deal with the threat, however, remained only that, the Baader-Meinhof of Volksparkstadion stuffed with TNT and blow it up just that on June 22.
East Germans have to cover the absence of Streich, injured. Buschner opts to enter Kurbjuweit Kreischa and in midfield and forward Sparwasser and Hoffmann. Schon has provided the entire rose: there is only one variation from the starting lineup, Floh in the field instead of Jupp Heynckes.
tension, fear, all the meanings that characterize the meeting block legs and ideas of the players. From the first whistle of the referee Uruguayan Ruiz Barreto for more than 40 minutes does not happen practically nothing. As long as Gerd Muller controls the ball in the area after an action confused and turn right in torsion: pole. After a couple of minutes the teams go to sleep.
interval DDR returns a more confident, more determined. In fifteen minutes the median Reinhard Lauck Overath burns on the shoot from outside but his right is a little off. At 69 'Schon tries to change in the running: replace with Schwarzenbeck Hottges Overath and off with Gunther Netzer, "the king pleasure-seeking" in Monchengladbach driving a Ferrari and runs a nightclub. Borussia Monchengladbach Bayern Monaco at the time and contend for the primacy of football German rivals, as the captains, Netzer and Beckenbauer, who together won the European title in 1972. Netzer In 1973 he moved to Real Madrid, but it seems that the rivalry with Beckenbauer has not stopped at all. According to the chronicles of Kaiser Franz would impose a preference for the ct Schon Wolfgang Overath Netzer, who played in Cologne. In those
world Netzer played only the final 22 minutes against West Germany, but curiously it is he once became general manager dell'Amburgo, to call the team Beckenbauer.
Netzer's entrance, however, does not bring the changes of pace that the coach would have hoped. The role is increasingly favored heavy for West Germany. And at 78 minutes Erich Hamann, entered at 66 'for Irschner, Sparwasser fishing area. striker with the jersey number 14, the same Cruyiff, control head, outrun Berti Vogts, avoid closing Hottges and terminating in the diagonal of the output Maier. East Germany is leading. It 's a worker goals, a striker who earns as a teacher in Italy and the medium that leads to humility inherent in the name of a vocation: Sparwassser fact means "the one that saves water." In a moment crumble the vaunted superiority of the Federal Republic, becoming the symbol of a nation and her mother is watching television to watch the game the other side of the wall.
His arms to the sky, the embrace of his teammates is accompanied only by the horns and the cries of the few oriental fans and the stadium fell silent. Beckenbauer continues to shout "nothing happened" , but something has happened. What Italy has to Kobarid, for West Germany is the Bruder Duell. The DDR Buschner, though disjointed and devolved into a senseless end, passed as the first in Group A.
At the end of the game, at first no one wants to knit Sparwasser. "Hell, he smelled so terrifying," said years later. Sparwasser, held by journalists, out of range for last. The wait in the tunnel leading to the locker room Overath, Paul Breitner. And 'he who gives the shirt the attacker. In 2002, after the great flood, Breitner auctioned to help the victims of the disaster; Sparwasser follows him, convinced even by his grandson. The two links were purchased for € 35 000 and donated to the House of History in Bonn.
The next day the newspaper of the East "Fuwo" moderate choose a title: "The tactic of Buschner harnesses the perfect opponent" . There is no mention of class struggle and political significance. In those meanings that have forced Sparwasser not to join the party with their peers on the streets of the city: images of any symbol as a player he got in too little covered in the West permissive attitudes would be an unbearable image damage for the propaganda of the regime. A regime that tries to appropriate at once that goal, which becomes the symbol for a year of many sports programs, however, a momentous victory. "The success of football even more clearly highlight the superiority of our socialist order in the sports," said Erich Mielke, minister of the Stasi.
Around the hero of Hamburg, at a time without internet and blogs, flower legends of a car, a new house and a large bank account data in premium Sparwasser. But none of this is true: authors of the players agreed to be just the reward of 2,500 marks each for the next round .
Someone, meanwhile, began to sow doubts about the other game, he begins to throw the suspicion that the White Westerners have in a sense tried to defeat. Why the West, despite the second place finish in the round easier than the second round. They beat Yugoslavia, Sweden and Poland win the final and then won in a comeback on Holland Crujiff and total calcium. The
DDR, however, access to play the final with Brazil, Argentina and Holland. Lost with the green and gold and oranjes, draw with the Albiceleste and go home. But home is still accepted and triumphantly continues the golden age began with the Olympic bronze in '72 Monaco, with the gold medal at the Games in Montreal in 1976 and three in five circles in Moscow in 1980.
Hip
Twenty-one months before the picks will fall of the Berlin Wall, Jurgen Sparwasser jumps the barricade and goes to the West . At the time, teaches education at the University of Magdeburg. The regime has obliged him to coach the team but he refused. For this risk also missed the chair and realized that it's time to escape. And it does so at the earliest opportunity useful.
was invited to a lot of old stars in the Federal Republic and his wife, after three waste, get a visa to go to the West. Taking advantage of poor control of the Stasi, the couple did not go back. The symbol of the communist regime, the rescue worker succumbs to lure Westerners. "We used to travel , I knew what life was like in capitalism, I had the trauma of the achievements unmatched."
Sparwasser, together with Falko Goetz, Norbert Jurgen Pahl and Nachtweih, is among the first players of East Germany in go West and follow the dream of a career in the Bundesliga after suffering a disqualification for 12 months by FIFA for failing to meet the current contract with the previous teams.
Sparwasser Since that time he lived near Frankfurt, Eintracht offered him a job as a coach, also became president of the union footballers . The fall of the wall triggers hopes, soon disillusioned. "I expected something more for the 'East did not go well and I said to' former Chancellor Kohl, on TV. It 'been destroyed, for money, all that was the DDR, not understanding to save the good part: the' formal education and sports, the social solidarity. We wanted freedom and deserve I do not know if all are really happy today. "
Sparwasser Before the fall of the wall has also been called a traitor by the officials of East Germany but the prosecution did not erase the goal that in 1974 he approached a little 'more about the fall of the Berlin Wall. " only write on my grave: Hamburg stadium, June 22, 1974 " he said. "Just this , understand who I am." You can believe it.
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