• Gerd Müller The iconic German striker dies at 75

He was short for the center forward position.

It measured 1.76.

But he seemed shorter still because his legs were short and thick, powerful, with a thigh diameter of 64 centimeters.

Slump-shouldered, moreover, was an insult to proportions.

But that somewhat chubby and unsightly appearance hid, with all his weapons primed and all his resources ready, one of the greatest scorers in football history.

Justifiably nicknamed "Bomber" and "Torpedo",

Gerhard (Gerd) Müller

, there are no nuances to define his style of play. He was a scorer. And nothing more. And nothing less. A scorer. With his head, despite his short stature. With both legs. A scorer with a lightning speed of turn and acceleration capacity in short sections. On a tile. In a hundredth of a second. No frills, no technical fanfare. Simple. Effective. Direct. With instinct. With smell. With precision. A scorer: Gerd Müller.

"What do you want me to do with a weightlifter?" Asked

Zlatko Cajkovski

, the Yugoslav (Croatian) coach of Bayern Munich when, in 1964, a robust 19-year-old boy with quadriceps was led into his presence. hypertrophied, from TSV Nördlingen, an insignificant Bavarian team, representing the town where the boy was born. "Let him play," replied the president,

Wilhem Neudecker

, giving him advice rather than an order

.

Cajkovski was slow, however, to do so. He was not convinced by the look of this Müller or impressed by the 180 goals (as it sounds) he had scored in a single season with the small, medieval Nördlingen team. Bayern was something else. It is true that I was in Second, but there were still classes. The need and what he saw in training forced him to line up the boy, whom he called "the chubby Müller", 10 games after he was deposited in his hands.

And that certain Müller no longer left the title until, 14 years later, he left for the United States, to the Fort Lauderdale Strikes, to get the last economic performance of his sports career (he would still score, in three seasons, 40 goals in 80 matches). He left behind huge scoring figures: 356 goals in 467 Bundesliga games, of which he was top scorer five times. In the 71-72 course he scored 40 goals in the Championship, a record that lasted until

Lewandowski

, with 41, beat him last season. In the calendar year of 1972 he established a mark of 85 goals that Messi would only succeed in surpassing, with 91, in 2012. With Bayern he would make, in all competitions, 582 goals.

In the World Cup in Mexico70 he was the top scorer with 10 goals in six games (the same number as in the triumphant Eurocup of 72). In Germany74, he would score four, including the victorious 2-1 in the final against the Netherlands. It was twice a Golden Boot (1970 and 1972) and a Golden Ball (1970). He would sign up for three European Cups with Bayern, which he would contribute decisively to define and position as one of the great teams of all time.

In that 1964 of his arrival he coincided at the club with a couple of young men called

Sepp Maier and Franz Beckenbauer

. The first was a year older. The second, his age. Supported by them, in that splendorous axis, a goalkeeper, a central defender and a center forward, Bayern rose to the Bundesliga and began their mythical journey in German and world football. According to

Beckenbauer

, that glorious era of the club, which laid the foundations of its permanent prestige, was owed to Müller more than to anyone else.

The emergence of Bayern was also that of the German team, united to him to almost form a single, compact and identifiable body.

Müller was a fundamental element in both.

The influence and importance of the scorer in a golden age of full German football admits few parallels.

The commitment of those men inspired those who succeeded them and made Bayern, too, an almost familiar entity.

In 2015, it was reported that Müller had suffered from severe Alzheimer's for years.

Like

Puskas

, the other great scorer of the 20th century.

A tragic coincidence.

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