Rudi Völler: It was his anger speech that made him “Ruuuuuudi”

Rudi Völler turns 60 on Easter Monday. But as it stands, he has to celebrate his historic birthday in domestic quarantine, and his guests sing his “Happy Birthday” as part of the video conference. Let’s hope that at least one of them, to save the party halfway, tells the shortest anecdote about Völler: that memorable airplane dialogue with a Scottish stewardess just before the start. She asks, “Are you ready?” Then he says, “No, I am Rudi.”

Jörg Wontorra, his former Bremen television partner, occasionally recites this sparkling two strokes, and the audience then touches his thighs and breaks the familiar catchy tune throughout the studio, which is based on the “Guantanamera” tune and that the band “La Rocca” has rewritten a German folk song: “There is only one ‘Rudi Völler”. Only those who have that certain something are sung like this.

Cologne dialect band “De Höhner” dedicated Völler to the hit “Tante Käthe”, paying particular attention to the nickname Rudi earned in the 1980s when he released a permanent minipli never seen anywhere else in this wavy style. A goal was scored. And alas, he didn’t score for three games, and the single came out with a musical accompaniment to Load Inhibition: “What’s wrong with Rudi?”

But the gunner then executed quickly and reliably, flanked by the longest battle cry in German soccer, with at least five to six Us.

Voller’s angry speech gave him the U

“Ruuuuuudi!”

Rarely have we heard so much love in one word in football stadiums, only before with Uwe Seeler, in short: “Uwe”. The older ones also remember the “Williiii” for Willi Schulz. The saber-footed Schalke was a terrific dog as a rustic cleaner and “World Cup Willi” in ’66 and gave interviews in which he proclaimed philosophies such as: “Wommer ma say, there is one in the criminal area and you’re not ready , give up da Kopp, then Kainer would be killed. “Schulz could have been arrested for death or imminent bodily harm, but instead became a cult.” Williii “rang through the wide circle.

When did the “Ruuuuuudi” start?

Cult researchers are arguing. Some claim that the Kosewort originated from the 1990 World Cup final, when Völler suddenly fell into the Argentine penalty area shortly before the end, with wonderful consequences. Pain. One zero. World Champion. Others suspect that he actually only became a “Ruuuuudi” when he stumbled into the World Cup final with his troublesome troop as team boss in 2002. But the truth is different: it was his 2003 anger speech that gave him the “U” s.

Giovanni Trapattoni (“empty bottle”) has long been regarded as a teacher and a measure of all things when it comes to anger. Until Rudi’s full attack on ARD-Nörgler Netzer, Delling and Hartmann. Saturday night entertainment in Germany has never been better than that Saturday night, in the furious third half after a zero earned in Iceland.

It was a kick to escape, and when the interviews of the German players didn’t raise the bar after the final whistle, ARD expert Günter Netzer asked in horror, “Why don’t they say they play good shit?”

Völler cannot be offered that. It rose in the air: zero zero, is that nothing? Don’t we bravely defy these dew-stained natural boys of the Atlantic? For Völler, Icelanders were no longer easy prey, as they did in 1960, for example: at that time they came to the international game directly from their fishing boats, they still competed with wool hats and tubular boots, and with goal nets Charly Dörfel and “Uns Uwe” gave them 5-0. The next day they fished their herring from the sea again.

“There are no kids in football anymore,” he taught smelly ARD boots with a sledgehammer, and he literally threw up, with Waldi Hartmann as the spittoon. “You sit comfortably in your chair here, you’ve had three wheat beers and you’re nice and relaxed,” the moderator said.

Wheat beer, Hartmann corrected, but Rudi was unstoppable. “Clutter, manure, cheese, shit, shit,” he said, and he even made Netzer a shorter head: “What I used to play was soccer.”

It was a desecration of heroes, or at least an insult to majesty. After all, Netzer was the head of the German magic team Ramba-Zamba, which in 1971 legendary shot the English in London outside of the European Championship race, which is why national coach Helmut Schön was excited about the rest of his life: “If I feel bad, I will understand”. the video of our victory at Wembley. “Today, in domestic quarantine, many soccer fans receive the video of Rudis’ fury.

This sudden outburst of anger made hot-blooded Hesse more famous than its doors. On the television show “Our Best,” moderator Johannes B. Kerner once looked for the best Germans of all time, and Völler slightly outnumbered Richard Wagner, Friedrich Schiller, Hermann Hesse, or Thomas Mann when he voted. And to Netzer anyway. His good manners didn’t help either, he just stood there like a nest spitter. On the other hand, Völler said: He is a person like you and me, his heart is in the right place.

And then you also have this perfect biography. Wherever he was a scorer, he has brought fame and glory everywhere, from the 1860s to Werder and Leverkusen. And as a German model, she has also increased our reputation abroad, at AS Roma or as the winner of the Champions League at Olympique de Marseille. But let’s continue with the basics: 47 goals in 90 international matches. Three World Cup tournaments. Three EM endings. Second World Cup. World Champion. If there was a goal: Rudi was there.

Or if a coach had to come here.

Like back then, after Erich Ribbeck, at the turn of the millennium. It was the darkest moment in German soccer. Völler entered the fire as a rescuer, and as team manager he was supposed to close the time until Christoph Daum was available as the national coach. But then her cocaine hairstyle didn’t stand up to forensic analysis. So Völler had to continue, he didn’t suspect that, at most, the traces of saliva with which Frank Rijkaard had gelled and ruined his hair at the 1990 World Cup could have been detected in his curly head.

That was in the round of 16, in Milan. They both saw red, which was a joke, because Rijkaard was the only culprit. The Dutchman spat and pinched Völler’s ear, and the war continued on the way to the cabin.

The armistice did not arrive until years later on the occasion of a “peace breakfast” at the Lerbach castle in Bergisch-Gladbach. Völler and Rijkaard sat harmoniously in a bathrobe at the table, with orange juice, croissants and jam, and smiled at the camera for the announcement of a Dutch motto, motto: “Everything in butter”.

For Völler and for us Germans it was anyway. The brief suspension after red in Milan made Rudi serve on the cheek, and a few days later we were world champions. From then on, he was sure of the gratitude of the country; In any case, we would swear any perjury that Rudi did not drop into the Argentine penal area.

When asked what made Völler so popular, Berti Vogts, the former national coach, once said, “His heart.” It is so big that everyone even turned a blind eye when he lost that heart twice. “I left my wife and children,” said Völler at the time, “do whatever you want with me, but leave my family alone.”

You can’t be mad at him. The only downside to Rudi Völler is his chronic pelvic misalignment, otherwise he goes straight to life, and would probably be a flawless saint if it weren’t for soccer. Every now and then he turns it into someone he doesn’t know, it’s like the scary classic “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, the macabre study of the double ego in which the honorable Doctor Jekyll is forcibly transformed into the filthy lord Hyde. “In amazement,” it reads, “Henry Jekyll was sometimes faced with the actions of Edward Hydes.” Just like Rudi was sometimes faced with people.

Oh, the demon in him is scared. Then it is quickly buckled to frowned upon referees or Mario Basler. He once blasphemed Bayer 04 Leverkusen (“A club without emotion, without fans, without everything”), so Völler did not ask for long if Basler had four or five Pils, but said: “He is a clown and a bad one” . “Paul Breitner did not improve much than when he urinated in Völler.” Everyone knows, “replied Rudi,” that the Breitner is a jerk, but nobody wants to say it out loud. “

Just him. If the courage of anger overwhelms him, Völler does not count to three, does not bite his lip, and does not exercise his right to refuse to testify, but instead launches into a verbal battle. Last season, a Sky interviewer once asked him, “As of today, can you say that Heiko Herrlich will continue to coach Bayer 04 Leverkusen on Matchday 18?” Völler replied: “Can you tell me that you are in the next year there will still be field journalists in Sky

The only sure thing is that Rudi Völler will regulate the sports business in Leverkusen until at least 2022. So, for at least two years, the football people will keep him, this old gray wolf, who may be a calm and sensible person, but in the next moment a “Rudi Rambo” (“BILD”). In any case, it is never boring. It can stay that way.

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