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Almost no other German footballer has had as much affection as Rudi Völler. He will turn 60 on Easter Monday.
In 1993 Rudi Völler won the Champions League with Olympique de Marseille, but the striker was especially successful with the German national team.
German soccer may not know a more popular figure than Rudi Völler. Popular is a slight euphemism for how this man is still known. When he was still a center forward in Bremen, fans were at his feet. It was no different with AS Roma, where it was drawn in 1987. The jubilation at Völler was also tremendous in Marseille. Völler, a complete and complicated center forward who was not fooled and technically perfect for speeding dribbling, was never particularly successful for a long time despite his tremendous qualities at his clubs.
In his first 100 Bundesliga games for Bremen, he scored 73 incredible goals. But Werder had the most successful phase under Otto Rehhagel, after Völler moved to Italy, not just for the remarkable 7.8 million German marks.
World champion and winner of the Champions League
He had great success as a club player at the end of the Olympique de Marseille outfit, which won the Champions League in 1993. Völler was particularly successful as a national player: 47 goals in 90 international matches. He was in the final of the World Cup twice. In 1990 he was knocked down in the final against Argentina in the penalty area. Andreas Brehme converted the penalty to the decisive 1-0.
The world champions were allowed to celebrate. But what Völler always received was not simply admiration for a successful athlete. Obviously it was a deeply felt affection, since it is only granted to a few protagonists of world football, and as it is also expressed in his nickname “Aunt Kathe”, who received due to Minipli’s notorious hairstyle, a slight aberration of taste, but the Audience apparently appeared as a confidence-building measure.
However, probability probably also plays a role in the fact that it has remained that way to this day. Because Völler was not just a great player. As a rookie, he coached the German national soccer team. At the time, after MS 2000, he had not applied for this job, and the office forced him. “Although the decision was made on instinct, it was still considered good,” said Völler, commenting on the commitment after being surprised by the greats of the German Football Association (DFB).
It was supposed to be a workaround. Christoph Daum was scheduled as a coach, but because the Leverkusen coach had become unbearable for the DFB due to the cocaine issue, Völler remained in office.
Perhaps one of the reasons for its popularity lies in the fact that Völler always showed his most intimate interior, or at least what was thought to be of particular interest to him. Relax in a trade that does everything possible to erect facades. But is this enough to explain why Völler has remained the secret love of the Germans, and not Franz Beckenbauer, nor Günter Netzer, and certainly not Lothar Matthäus or Philipp Lahm? At most, the Cologne tribune Lukas Podolski can still confront him.
Rudistas and rumblefeeders
After Völler became a team manager and had several successes in this role immediately, the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” titled: “A village of Rudistas”. The relationship between Völler and the public has never been more succinctly and accurately described.
Rudi and the Rudistas: nothing that Völler and his audience could divide. It was the time when things weren’t even going so well for German football. At that time not only was the term Rudist coined, but also that of the thick-legged bird. This meant footballers whose technical ability was not up to international standards, and who rather rumbled on the field.
One of Coach Rudi Völler’s greatest communicative achievements is having successfully established this reading. Because he actually had some very good footballers on his team: striker Miroslav Klose, midfielder Michael Ballack, Bernd Schneider and Torsten Frings. Cerber Oliver Kahn at the door. It wouldn’t have been long, and the embarrassed national coach would have left Brazil as coach of the world champion in 2002, if previously immaculate goalkeeper Kahn hadn’t missed the mark.
Legendary Rage Speech
And yet the years under Völler are considered quite wasted in German football. In retrospect, the fact that the coach himself cultivated the myth of staff shortage may be seen as an oath of revelation, but it did not affect his popularity and, in retrospect, one wonders what Rudi Völler was allowed to do. That television appearance is legendary when it began what later went down in German television history as a “cheesy shit speech.” After a 0: 0 in Reykjavik against Iceland, Völler settled with his critics in September 2003, especially with the ARD duo Günter Netzer and Gerhard Delling. Netzer, who did not want to be part of the less talented German legend, rebuilt himself: You must reclaim German football. And one should not let Rudi Völler take them away.
A year later, after the European Championship in Portugal, Völler resigned. The team was eliminated in the preliminary round, the coach with his skills visibly at the end. He went to Bayer Leverkusen, where he still works as head of sports. Celebrate its 60th birthday on Easter Monday.
