Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/321747
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 1 JUNE 2014 46 46 Switzerland 1954: Fritz Walter: 'I was the coach's representative on the pitch' Fritz Walter was the decisive man in the Germany team that surprised many when they won the World Cup title in Switzerland 1954, beating Hungary - the great favourites as well as the best team in the tournament, who had been unbeaten for close to four years by that time – in the final ESTEBAN BAYER WALTER, who died on June 17, 2002, during the South Korea- Japan 2002 World Cup, was the captain and the brains behind the "Miracle of Bern," as the feat was known later. That Germany team became a symbol of post-war Ger- man reconstruction. "I remember (the final in Bern) as if it had happened today," Wal- ter said in his memoirs. "A heavy rain was falling, and it seems like I always played good matches under such conditions." Since then, Ger- mans talk of "Fritz Walter weather" to describe games played in the rain on muddy pitches. "(Coach) Sepp Herberger, who was the real architect of that title, sent us onto the pitch with the or- der to keep the score 0-0 for as long as possible," said Walter. He also recalled, however, that he, as "the coach's representative on the pitch," could not prevent everything from going wrong at the start: Hungary's machine, around Ferenc Puskas, Zoltan Czibor and Sandor Kocsis, "started playing at fireman speed and literally were all over us." Eight minutes into the match, Germany were losing 2-0. However, Max Morlock scored a goal. "The Hungarians started to get nervous and we realized that not everything was lost." Helmut Rahn scored for 2-2, and Hungary, ac- cording to Walter, "got scared, they seemed paralyzed." In the changing room, at half-time, I told the lads that we could achieve the feat and we achieved it with the second goal from 'boss' Rahn, with just 6 min- utes left of the game," he said. Walter played a total of 61 matches with Germany, half of them as team captain, and he scored 33 goals. In 1942 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht to fight in World War II. He was sent to the Eastern front, where he was taken prisoner by So- viet troops. "The war stole my best years," Walter complained in his memoirs. In 1945 he was able to leave the prisoner of war camp where he was being held and returned to his country, where he picked up his sports career again. He was a devoted fan of his team, Kaiserslautern, for whom he played 1937-59, despite lucrative offers from Atletico Madrid and Inter Milan. "In 1951, Kaiserslautern were pay- ing me little more than 300 marks, and suddenly Atletico showed up with an offer for an outrageous half-a-million marks for two years, a fantastic sum of money. I asked my wife, Italia, and she decided that we would stay," the 1954 World Cup winning captain recalled. The Switzerland 1954 title at least brought Walter 2,500 marks and an armchairs and sofa set. After winning that World Cup he played the sport's top tournament again in Sweden 1958, at age 37. However, Germany were unable to repeat their feat of four years earlier and lost in the semi-finals against the hosts, to end up fourth. Despite his great presence on the pitch, where he was an excellent strategist with a very broad scope of action, Walter admitted that things were different off the pitch. "For years, international matches made me very, very nervous, so much so that I felt ill. It often hap- pened that I had to go to the toilet and I locked myself in there until a few minutes before the match started." Fritz Walter was the captain and the brains behind the "Miracle of Bern," as the feat was known later. Photo by: alliance / dpa