Gerd Mueller stays one in all Germany’s finest strikers of all time, even after Robert Lewandowski on Saturday equalled his Bundesliga report of 40 targets in 1971/72, which many thought would by no means be matched.
The 75-year-old Mueller, who spends his days peacefully dozing in a south Munich nursing dwelling for sufferers with extreme dementia, has not been conscious his report was at risk – not like his spouse.
She has been listening to about “nothing else on a regular basis for weeks,” Uschi Mueller told magazine Sport Bild.
Gerd Mueller would not hold it against Lewandowski for breaking her husband’s record, Uschi Mueller is “one hundred percent sure” of that.
She says the previous Bayern Munich and West Germany legend would by no means have begrudged Lewandowski.
“Quite the alternative: he can be the primary to supply congratulations, to say: ‘Well done, boy. You did well’.”
Despite his poor health, Mueller remains a German football icon and earned the nickname “The Bomber” for his targets having scored 68 instances in 62 internationals for West Germany.
Mueller’s whole of 365 Bundesliga targets appears out of attain, even for Lewandowski who scored his 276th German league objective on Saturday.
“In my eyes, he (Mueller) is a very powerful participant within the historical past of Bayern Munich,” said former team-mate Franz Beckenbauer.
“It is thanks to his goals that the club has reached the international level where it still plays.
“I am convinced that people will still be talking about him in a hundred years’ time.”
Mueller’s targets helped West Germany win the 1974 World Cup last and the European Championship last two years earlier.
He scored twice within the 1972 Euro last in a 3-0 win over the Soviet Union, then his shot within the field two years later within the 1974 World Cup last sealed a 2-1 win over the Johan Cruyff-inspired Netherlands.
With Bayern, Mueller was a three-time winner of the European Cup in 1974, 1975 and 1976, the forerunner of the Champions League.
Many thought his 40 targets in 34 Bundesliga video games in 1971/72 would by no means be matched – till Lewandowski’s exploits this season.
Paul Breitner, a team-mate of Mueller, says Lewandowski is the primary participant he has seen with the “enormous high quality and a greed that I’ve solely recognized from Gerd in 5 a long time, who was by no means glad and would have liked to attain 10 targets in each sport”.
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