Andi Brehme has recently passed away, at the relatively young age of just 63, but he leaves in his wake a hugely significant legacy, and many iconic memories.
Undoubtedly first among these was his winning penalty in the 1990 World Cup Final, after his captain Lothar Matthäus, who was meant to take, opted instead for his trusty left-back to take over spot-kick duties at the moment of maximum pressure. Brehme duly obliged and won the tournament for West Germany against Argentina, having in the semi-final against England already scored Germany’s only goal from the famously deflected free-kick, and converted the first German penalty of the shoot-out.
Brehme’s club career was also full of excitement. He won Bundesliga titles with Bayern and Kaiserslautern, the latter coming towards the end of his career, and off the back of promotion from the 2. Bundesliga the previous season, but it was for Inter that Brehme’s exploits at club level were most enduring.
Naturally, the late 80s were an extraordinary peak for Serie A, with clubs flush with Lire and willing to assemble some of the finest squads ever seen. I shan’t bore you with listing some of the names, but suffice it to say that no league before or since has seen such a concentration of talent as Serie A witnessed in the 80s and 90s, even despite the rules limiting teams to three foreign players.
Trapattoni’s Inter were no exception; in response to the three Dutchmen of Milan, Inter had the three Germans – Matthäus, Brehme and Jürgen Klinsmann. While they did not have the longevity of their cross-town rivals, their zenith was arguably more spectacular, with Trapattoni leading them, with as much grit and guile as with his earlier Juventus sides, to a record points total in the era when only two points were awarded for a win.
Brehme was a relatively early example of a genuinely complete full-back, capable of devastating attacking contributions, as well defensive stoutness. Strangely, the finest pioneers of this all played on the left, and all came from either Italy or Germany – Facchetti ruled the 60s, then Breitner the 70s, then Cabrini the 80s, before Brehme emerged as the world leading exemplar of this at the end of the 1980s.
Brehme’s death has come as an almighty shock to the football world, but it gives us a chance to remember one of the game’s greats.
“Andreas Brehme” by Dappes at German Wikipedia (Original text: Ingo Stöldt) is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0