Was Gerd Müller the greatest striker ever? There wouldn't have been many better. The words ‘legend’ and ‘champion’ are often overused in sport, but few can argue the status of the Bayern Munich legend, who passed away this week at the age of 75 after a battle with Alzheimer's.
Lacking the physical assets that usually define quality players, Müller was strong, and deceptively quick over short distances. It was this rare combination that saw him net a remarkable 51 goals in 31 matches for fifth-tier German club TSV Nördlingen in 1963-64, and as Bayern Munich only knows how, they took him for their own. When he arrived in Munich as a short and chubby 19-year-old in 1964, Bayern was only in the second tier of German football - its sole top-flight trophy arriving 32-years prior in 1932. It was far from the powerhouse we know today. Müller was immediately at home alongside the soon-to-be big names of Franz Beckenbauer and Sepp Maier. Beckenbauer - who would himself become one of the game’s best defenders - admitted he “never had a chance” when tasked with containing Müller during training. But neither did the opposition. His 33 goals in 26 league games in 1964-65 helped Bayern win the Regional League South and progress to the top tier. And as Müller grew in stature, so did the Bavarians. He won four Bundesliga titles, four DFB-Pokals and three European Cups, was the Bundesliga’s top-scorer seven times, and consequently named German Footballer of the Year twice. In 1972, he scored 85 goals for both club and country - a record that stood for 40 years, until Barcelona’s Lionel Messi bettered it with 91 in 2012. A Ballon d’Or in 1970 proved his world-class status, and he kicked the winning goal in the 1974 World Cup final for West Germany - his 68 goals from just 62 international appearances made him one of only three men to have played more than 50 international matches for more goals than caps. Müller’s 564 goals for Bayern made him the Bavarians’ record goalscorer by some distance, and was fittingly nicknamed ‘Der Bomber’. A transition perhaps unlike any other - from looking nothing like a footballer, to one of the greatest ever seen.
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