Andreas “Andi” Brehme wasn’t supposed to be the hero of the 1990 World Cup final.
Striker Rudi Voller was down for the penalty shootout but didn't want it when the time came because he was the man brought down in the penalty area; At least in the eyes of referee Edgardo Codesal. German football superstition stated that the fouled player should never take the subsequent penalty. The second in line, Lothar Matthäus, also declined. The team captain had changed shoes at halftime and was not feeling well.
So it fell to Inter Milan's 29-year-old full-back Brehme to take on Argentine goalkeeper Sergio Goycochea in the 85th minute of a goalless game at Rome's Olympic Stadium. “If you score, we will be world champions,” Voller told his teammate, as angry protests from Diego Maradona’s men delayed the penalty for seven minutes. Then there is no pressure.
However, Brehme had something more important to consider. Which foot should he use? The Hamburg native was the most ambidextrous player of his generation and equally enjoyed shooting the ball with both feet. Four years earlier, Brehme had converted a penalty kick in the quarterfinals against hosts Mexico with his left wing en route to Germany's 1986 World Cup final defeat against the same opponents.
That night in Rome he walked with his other foot. Goycochea had saved four penalties in the previous two games (against Yugoslavia and Italy) but had no chance this time. The ball fizzed deep and right into the corner. Soon after, Germany had won its third World Cup title, albeit its first as a reunified nation.
Brehme celebrates after taking the penalty in 1990 (Georges Gobet/AFP via Getty Images)
“My left is harder and my right is more precise,” Brehme later told the German news magazine Der Spiegel. During training at Inter, he regularly challenged Italian goalkeeper Walter Zenga to a shootout in which he took five shots with each foot.
Brehme had also scored in the quarter-finals against the Netherlands and in the semi-finals against England when Peter Shilton failed to save his poorly deflected left-footed free kick.
At the age of five, he was juggling balls during half-time at games played by HSV Barmbek-Uhlenhorst, his father Bernd's Hamburg amateur team. After training as a machine fitter, Brehme moved to the second division club Saarbrücken, but only played there for one season before he was signed by the then first division club Kaiserslautern in 1981.
Five years later, Bayern Munich bought him for 2 million German marks (1 million euros) – the second highest transfer fee paid in the Bundesliga up to that point. He was a cultured player who combined great work ethic, defensive seriousness and clever runs with a knack for scoring important goals. Brehme won the championship with Bayern in 1987 and then, like so many top German and international players of his time, followed the call of Serie A.
At Inter he joined his former Bayern teammate Matthäus. National striker Jürgen Klinsmann completed Tedesci's (German) trilogy a year later.
By signing the trio, Inter wanted to emulate the success that city rivals AC Milan had achieved with three Dutchmen in Marco van Basten, Frank Rijkaard and Ruud Gullit. And it worked. The incredibly versatile Brehme won the Scudetto in 1989 – when he was voted Italy's Footballer of the Year ahead of Maradona – and the UEFA Cup in 1991 under coach Giovanni Trapattoni.
In 1993 he returned to Kaiserslautern and was relegated with them three years later. After the final whistle of the 1-1 draw on the final day of the match against Bayer Leverkusen, which plunged Kaiserslautern into the second division, Brehme sobbed uncontrollably in the arms of Voller (then Leverkusen striker) live in a television studio.
It's a touching moment that went down in German football history and cemented Brehme's popularity as a player who truly cared.
Brehme with the 1998 Bundesliga Cup (Bongarts/Getty Images)
He decided to postpone his retirement to allow them to regain promotion next season. Brehme's active career ended like a fairytale: In 1998, Kaiserslautern became the first team in Bundesliga history to win the championship as a promoted team.
Subsequent positions as coach at Kaiserslautern and assistant to Trapattoni at Stuttgart were less successful. Nevertheless, Brehme's footballing legacy was beyond doubt, as he became the third man to score a World Cup-winning goal for Germany and one of the most influential players at Inter.
Former teammates were deeply saddened by the 63-year-old's untimely death due to cardiac arrest on Monday evening. “I can’t speak, I’m in shock,” Guido Buchwald, also the 1990 world champion, told the SID news agency. “Andi was always positive, he radiated life. He was a great person, a great friend.”
Inter, who will wear black armbands in their Champions League home game against Atlético Madrid on Tuesday evening, posted: “Ciao Andy. Forever a legend.”
Germany shares the opinion.
(Top photo: Staff/AFP via Getty Images)