Then Portugal was scheduled to pay a visit to CSSR. With a point at Wembley, where Czechoslovakia miserably lost 0-3, a tie was expected in Prague.
The new Portugal: front, left to right: Martins, Octavio, Alves, Coelho, Chico.
Standing: Artur, Alhinho, Humberto, Damas, Teixeira, Osvaldinho.
Not a team equal to old Portugal with Eusebio, yet dangerous enough with Humberto and Artur in defense and Alves in midfield. May be not a danger to the English, but to the Czechoslovakians – surely.
Led by Barros and Ondrus the opponents came out on the pitch in Prague. The Portuguese looked fierce, too fierce. Remember, in the 70s the longer the hair and the beard – the classier the player. Ondrus paled next to Barros, the outcome of the match was crystal clear.
CSSR lining up before the home game against Portugal started: left to right: Bicovsky, Nehoda, Gajdusek, Petras, Knapp, Koubek, Jozef Capkovic, Masny, Ondrus, Viktor, Pivarnik – captain. Hardly a great team, with some unknown players like Knapp and Koubek, and some remembered for their fiasco at the 1970 World Cup like Petras. Jumping ahead, the substitutes, replacing Koubek and Knapp during the match were also quite unknown – J. Svoboda and Medvid. Perhaps when these guys grew their hair longer then now, they were to start winning, but not yet…
Five goals later the burly Portuguese, not the Czechoslovakians, were completely destroyed.
Damas winning the air battle with Petras, who once upon a time made the sign of the cross after scoring against Brazil at 1970 World Cup. Back then few players were crossing themselves and surely not those from Communist countries. Now Petras was losing a cross and the representative of a Catholic country was getting the upper hand. But no goalie is a hero after 5 goals in his net:
Petras scoring the 5th.
This picture summarizes the match – supreme Nehoda, desperate Barros and Damas, the ball missed and going in the net, Pivarnik at the back ready to lift hands in triumph and Alhinho looking gloomy next to him.
Alarming victory of CSSR? Well, not really – there was no panic: everything was fulfilling predictions – CSSR and Portugal were to fight among themselves for the second place, neither particularly great, and England having an easier life. May be Portugal was even out of the race already – but England had a confident victory over Czechoslovakia already.

Seven qualifying groups ended as predicted. Even Wales was hardly a surprise, for the group was weak anyway. If anything, qualifications were dull – but, as ever, criticism was shunned – just watch out, in few months everything will be different when the boys start playing for real. The only bomb dropped from Group1. At first it was considered tough group, but the favourite was more or less clear: England. Portugal and Czechoslovakia were able to give a fight, but nothing else. Cyprus did not count of course. Portugal was still rebuilding and judged to be in transition, therefore not ready for a real challenge. Czechoslovakia was under the radar since 1970 – after miserable performance at the 1970 World Cup, CSSR was in a crisis – a whole generation stepped down and there were no strong replacements in sight, at least not to European eye. The country failed to do much in the European Championship 1972, failed to qualify for the World Cup 1974, and on club level the Czechoslovakians were still pleasant to watch – but only to ¼ finals at best, when they were inevitably outclassed. It was expected Czechoslovakia and Portugal to compete for the second place in the group – may be giving trouble to England, but at the end everything would be ‘normal’. England was the likeliest winner – the failure of 1973 was not to be repeated: it appeared that England managed to learn a lesson or two since then, and, most importantly, managed to change generations and build new strong team. One thing was ‘certain’ - England was not going to underestimate the opposition as they did in 1973. And predictions were kind of fulfilled – England played three games at home, before anybody else, and collected 5 points easily: 3-0 with CSSR; 0-0 with Portugal; and 5-0 with Cyprus. The tie with Portugal produced some grumbling, but not real concern – after all, it was expected the opposition to steal a point or two. But look at the record – 8 goals scored and none received! No way England would fail.
Malcolm MacDonald celebrating one of his 5 goals against Cyprus: he was the top scorer of the English 1974-75 season with 27 goals and looked like England found a scoring machine.
Portugal, looking desperate against constant assaults, extracted a point at Wembley – 0-0. Their keeper Damas, sandwiched between menacing Watson and Channon clears the ball, but… Portugal was clearly not able to do more than that. A slip of the English perhaps… but then look at the weather. Excusable mischance, to be amply compensated later – the team was just too strong.
In a way, the picture was telling what was to be: the opponents missing a punch, but not the English, who were to knock down the rest. In reality – the Czechoslovakian goalie Ivo Viktor clears the ball from Dobson. But symbolism so far represented the true situation: Viktor appears desperate, Dobson too strong… England won with confidence 3-0.
So good so far! Clear supremacy, strong team, rich on choices and variations: MacDonald and Dobson were not even real starters, so imagine the wealth of the English pool! They had Kevin Keegan after all!
For many, Keegan was already the best European player. With him England was unstoppable. May be the best was just to cancel the remaining games – what was the point when England was so strong?

The steelier among the iron groups was Group 5: Holland, Poland, and Italy. Finland completed the group, her sole purpose was to donate points and provide comfortable goal differences to the aces. The most exciting teams at the World Cup in 1974, correspondingly finishing with silver and bronze medals. The Italian fiasco at the World Cup did not diminish the aura of the national team – Italians were thought determined to wipe clean the tarnish, but even without the sting from 1974 they were always a predatory team and a favourite. As it turned out, Italy suffered more than a sting – a massive change of mentality was needed, on every level of Italian football. Unfortunately, defensive football proved very difficult to shake – Italian mind was so conditioned by defensive schemes by now, that it was instinctive. And this instinct was never sufficiently erased – Italy plays primarily defensive football to this very day. But it was painfully clear in 1974 that catenaccio was outdated and the brand of losers. Naturally, the first to go was the old coach Feruccio Valcareggi. He was at the helm since 1966, therefore, incapable of atuning his views to the 70s. He was replaced by Fulvio Bernardini and it was under his guidance Italy hit rock bottom. In retrospect it looks like Bernardini was chosen not to rebuilt the national team into modern squad, but rather appointed as the person most suitable to swallow all possible blame: Bernardini was good 15 years older than Valcareggi. Born in 1905, he was 70 years old when accepting to coach the national team. His record was even more alarming than his age – he made both Fiorentina and Bologna champions of Italy, but long ago – Fiorentina in 1956 and Bologna in 1964. The years were telling… those were exactly the times when catenaccio was taking shape and was ‘the modern way to play’. Bernardini was hardly the coach to change anything and he also had plenty of players with mega-reputations and deeply embedded old habits, who were difficult to replace even if the coach wanted to. Unlike West Germans stars, the Italian ones were not eager to quit the national team. The coach himself was reluctant to ignore them - it was not easy to retire Mazzola, Rivera, Fascetti, Riva, even for a coach willing to do so, but Bernardini was not very willing to begin with. Yet, there were constant attempts to refresh the squad, to introduce new players, in the hope that some less known and younger players would be naturally inclined to play more open game, if not genuine total football. New players were constant failure – everybody in Italy was conditioned to defensive game and the new boys were just paler copies of the big old stars. Experiments led to nothing and Italy finished measly 3rd in the group, scoring astonishing number of goals – a whole lot of three in six games! They were tough to beat as ever, but proved to be only that. Italy was not even able to win over Finland at home – the 0-0 tie provided the outsiders their only point.
This left only Holland and Poland as real contenders, providing they were able to break the Italian walls, and the Dutch had the edge, despite the fact they had new coach. Like Holland, Poland depended on limited number of great players. Similarly, both countries essentially preserved the same squads and same tactics after the World Cup. And at that similarities ended – unlike Holland, Polish stars were not concentrated in 3 clubs, but scattered in many. Unlike the Dutch, who were playing together weak after weak and thus were able to maintain strong form, Polish stars were most often surrounded with weaker teammates and lacking collective boost, they had difficulty to stay in top condition. Dutch coaches had it easier, for the main starters hardly needed a lot of training – the concern was rather tactical: which combination of players was best for a specific opponent. Everybody was familiar with everybody else and there was hardly any problem with execution. In Poland the national team had to be trained and shaped, especially when new players were included. But Kazimierz Gorski was working with the national team for a long time and made it more like a club squad already – the trouble was aging on one hand and players allowed to play abroad. So far, Polish football was officially ‘amateur’ and on top of that export was done in almost clandestine manner, so foreign based professionals were automatically out of the national team. In 1975 this became a bit of a problem, for Lubanski was permitted to play in Belgium and Gadocha nd Marks – in France. Given the limited pool, this was severe loss – three strikers were difficult to replace. On the brighter side Polish players were more than willing for the national team, if only to get a chance to go abroad, and under Communist conditions scandals and open rebellions were impossible. The Dutch had no problem calling foreign-based stars like Cruyff, Neeskens, Rensenbrink, but there was problem with stubbornly opinionated and pig-headed players. Frequently Dutch stars refused to play because of disagreements, or boycotting the coach, or teammates. Frequently there was no reason at all – a player just did not think important certain match or preferred to stay home instead of going to a national team camp. Private matters played a large role – Cruyff disliked van Beveren and for this reason alone Holland had no decent goalkeeper for years. Coaching itself was becoming laughable: Rinus Michels returned to Barcelona after the World Cup ended and new coach was hired. It was amusing choice – George Knobel. George, or Georges Knobel was freshly fired from Ajax, where he effectively managed to destroy a great team in less than an year. This dubious achievement was awarded with appointment to coach the national team – where the largest bulk was Ajax players, not to mention Cruyff and his long memory. It was Knobel, who asked Ajax players to vote for a captain of the team – and they voted for Keiser, not for Cruyff (he was still there at the time). And what kinf of coach was Knobel anyway? He came to Ajax from nowhere and sunk it. Leaping a bit ahead, Knobel’s career was practically one year in Ajax and two years with the national team. After 1976 he disappeared, coaching in Hong Kong and Malaysia. Hardly a gifted specialist, judging by his career… and his contribution to Holland was more than suspect. He inherited an improvised by Michels squad and changed absolutely nothing. For instance, Hulshof and Gerrit Muhren, who missed the World Cup because of injuries, were healthy now, but neither was ever called back. Van Beveren was not recalled either, although Knobel got rid of pathetic goalie Youngbloed and Schrijvers, reduced to substitute by Michels, was first choice again.
It was goalkeeping and central defense in need of shaping, but Knobel simply kept whatever Muchels concocted out of sheer lack of players. A good deal of players was aging too and here the small pool of talent made the final decisions: youngsters were constantly tried, but old legs were better at the end. Apart from bigger number of PSV Eindhoven players, no changes were made by Knobel neither tactical, nor in selection. And it was the familiar names from Ajax and Feyenoord at the end, for apart from the van der Kerkhof twins no PSV players really gained regular spot in the team. The brothers were rather ominous addition, though – they were not artistic, but rather German kind of players, and they were eventually to shape Holland into a lesser copy of West Germany circa 1978: physical fighters with lots of strength and very short of improvisation, invention, and beauty.
At the end of the day, Holland had slightly larger and better core of stars than Poland and also the real edge – Cruyff. He was often ‘unavailable’ – meaning, he decided which games to play and which to skip, but having even the possibility of Cruyff playing was an advantage – guessing was a trouble for the opposition.
1.NETHERLANDS 6 4 0 2 14- 8 8
2.Poland 6 3 2 1 9- 5 8
3.Italy 6 2 3 1 3- 3 7
4.Finland 6 0 1 5 3-13 1
At the end Holland advance on better goal difference, which was not much to say for the team, given the mediocrity of Italy and relatively weaker than 1974 Poland.
George Knobel destroyed burly looking Ajax before joining the same players in the national team. Perhaps the luckiest mediocrity he was – and double lucky, for Holland managed to qualify. What was his contribution, though?
Johann Cruyff against Finland in Helsinki. Holland won 3-1 and probably more than ever Cruyff was the real maker and shaker of the Dutch. Still using number 14 and surely having the last word.

So far, five easy qualifying groups, the easiest of them all almost ending with surpise elimination of the world champions. Three groups were taugh, however, and therefore – unpredictable. Group 4 was the least interesting among them – Spain, Scotland, Romania, and Denmark. The Danes were the outsider, no problem – they were envisioned to finish last and they did not disappoint. The rest were seen more or less equal – not really great and with many troubles. The Scots pleased everybody at the World Cup in 1974, but they had scoring difficulties and tended to underperform against weaker opponents. Spain and Romania both missed the World Cup finals and were deep in their own crisis – Romania in transformation; Spain routinely by now failing to advance. It was to be a Russian roulette – much depending on chance, on momentary form, on matches with Denmark, and very likely on goal difference. It was expected to be nasty, unexciting fight for the first spot. And it was – most matches ended tied. Wins were collected from the fixtures with Denmark and nobody shined. Spain and Romania did not lose a single game, but Romania finished 5 of their 6 group matches in draws. Scoring was not the forte of any team. The decisive match was probably played in Glasgow, where Spain clinched 2-1 win over Scotland. The rest of the games between the favourites were ties and Denmark collected their single point at home against Romania. Which at the end moved Spain to ¼ finals. Scotland was true to predictions – even if they did not lose at home to Spain, the Scots were not going to progress for they scored as low as expected. Only a home win against Spain would have qualify them.
1.SPAIN 6 3 3 0 10- 6 9
2.Romania 6 1 5 0 11- 6 7
3.Scotland 6 2 3 1 8- 6 7
4.Denmark 6 0 1 5 3-14 1
Spain, visiting Romania on 16 October, 1975: top, left to right: Sol, Benito, Miguel Angel, Pirri, Camacho, Migueli.
Bottom: Quini, Villar, Santillana, Del Bosque, Rojo I (or Chechu Rojo – he was listed by either name).
Looking grim and determined fighters – exactly what they were. A mean squad, capable of extracting a point in Bucharest – 2-2. Not exciting at all – Santillana excepted. Pirri, Camacho, and Del Bosque were surely top guns, but as a whole a game-killing squad and it was difficult to imagine another, more playful one. Villar, Rojo, Benito, Miguel Angel were perhaps the best representation of Spanish football – tough players, not at all great, and easily replaceable with countless others of the same mold. Which at the end was liability, for seemingly Spain was lacking enough truly outstanding players. Even the goalscoring machine Quini was largely a fighter, easily lapsing into dirty tricks and time-wasting and entirely forgetting that there was a net at the other end of the pitch. Going ahead, but unlikely very far.

And such was the contribution of most new national players – at the end, only Dietz, Kaltz, and Stielike established themselves in the national team. However, by 1976 only the left full back Dietz was a firm national player. The other two were still questionable (in the case of Kaltz – Berti Vogts was the main obstacle). It was not only new players giving headache to Schon – out of desperation, he tried, discarded, tried again, and discarded again some players, who no longer had firm place in the team – Heynckes and Wimmer. Both were starters in the great team winning the European championship in 1972, but were relegated to the substitute bench at the World Cup in 1974. Heynckes was reintroduced in hope to improve scoring – he was the top goalscorer in Germany in 1974-75, and generally was second best the previous seasons. But he was not up to Schon’s expectations – and he was quickly replaced by another player in the next match. The replacement failed as well, Heynckes was called again… it was painful struggle.
Heynckes scoring against Greece and 1-0 for West Germany. It was not enough… Heynckes seemingly was able to score occasionally against outsiders by now, and his rare goals were not winners either – the Greeks equalized.
Similarly Wimmer: he was originally a defensive midfielder, moved to playmaker’s position in Borussia after Netzer went to Spain. In the national team Wimmer was edged by his younger teammate in Borussia – Rainer Bonhof – and firmly benched during the World Cup. In late 1974 and 1975 he was a starter again – seemingly, Schon was trying to use him as a playmaker – but Wimmer was not Netzer or Overath… At the end, Flohe and Culmann were playing more and more and the whole German team looked tough, but clueless. Capable of running, but not of playing. Frustration was obvious. I watched Bulgaria – West Germany in the drizzle of cold April day in Sofia: the match was huge disappointment – chaotic Bulgarian squad, having no idea what to do on the pitch was opposed by equally chaotic and not knowing what to do German squad. By sheer willpower, the World Champions prevented a loss. It was impossible to tell who were the world champions, except by the colour of the shirts… both teams were increadibly bad. Sign of the times to come – the bleak, artless, unimaginative German football of the 1980s, winning only by will and physicality, was already in place. There was strength and no spark. West Germany moved ahead, but without even winning against lowly opponents like Bulgaria and Greece. It could be said that Malta actually qualified West Germany – by beating Greece and losing 0-8 to the Germans.
Two 1-1 ties against… Greece. Erich Beer, one of the not-so-young new players introduced by Schon seems impessive with this flying header in front of Pallas and Kaltz. Modest players like Pallas were a big problem for the mighty Germans… for the likes of Beer. Kaltz was hardly big help yet. What a downfall – it looks like Maier needs the gloves of the Greek goalie Kelesidis. Well, at least this photo is misleading – at least Maier was in top form and distinct from his Greek colleague. Can’t say the same for the Germans on the left.
The last hope was in revoking the World Cup – back than Schon modified the team every game until finally finding the right variation. It came at the last match in the semi-final round robin group and became the squad winning the tournament. May be he will be able to find his winning team when it matters again? Old fox like Schon… in a way, he did it again. Almost did it. But by the end of 1975 there was no sign of greatness and the only reason West Germany was seen as still dangerous team was because it was West Germany. Alas, a very different one from even a year ago – West Germany of the 1980s, hateful to watch, was already taking shape. The team which banished fun from football.

Let’s cut the next cake: from left - Bayern president Wilhelm Neudecker, Franz Beckenbauer with wife Brigitte, and the star of 1954 World Cup Fritz Walter. The Kaiser displays fashionable jacket to make the party brighter.
Love birds? Not really – publicity stint rather. Sepp Maier at the Oktoberfest, having a beer with one of the best German alpine skiers Christa Zechmeister. The table is littered with football photos which Maier must sign and give away.
The seemingly endless party looking so fine and jolly in print was unable to hide growing discontent and outright trouble. The first scandal occurred immediately after winning the World Cup: the German Federation invited the national team to a celebratory reception. But the suits in the Federation were old and conservative – wives and especially girlfriends were not invited. Breitner, Muller, and Hoeness (if memory serves me correctly) were outraged and stormed out to celebrate elsewhere. Breitner made his opinion known to the press, which was hardly surprising, for he was well known critic of everything. Muller, however, was usually keeping his mind to himself and his bitter outburst was more serious news. Disgusted Muller announced that he was quitting the national team. The whole subject of women was torny: invitations were selective and arbitrary, rubbing players in the wrong way – Frau Beckenbauer was invited, but not Frau Muller. Unmarried players felt entirely discriminated against, for girlfriends were not invited at all. Parties had little to do with football, yet, the matter who can attend and who cannot official functions played destructive role in dividing the team.
Gerd Muller’s announcing that he does not want to play for West Germany anymore opened a problem of replacements – so far, the West Germans were able quietly and methodically to change aging players with new ones. There was no fuss over Seeler, Haller, and Schnellinger few years back – but then there were Beckenbauer, Muller, Netzer, already with huge reputations and experience. Now the situation was different
and Beckenbauer’s warning was actually right: replacement loomed as a megaproblem, for there were no obvious newcomers. The emotional announcement of Muller aggravated the problem by making it public and focusing entirely critical scrutiny on a process normally kept away from public view.
Eventually, it became known that Muller did not decide to quit out of the blue – he told Schon before the World Cup started that it was his last tournament. Muller felt tired, playing too many games in a year, and national team duty was too much. He was no longer young. The original announcement was fine – every player has to step down some time and Schon, alerted in advance, had time for quite search of replacement. But it was also a classic problem: how to replace a megastar? It is never painless and easy, for practically every new candidate pales in comparesment. There is always reluctantcy to call somebody else… and in the case of Muller it was even worse: was it possible at all to replace the best goalscorer in the world? Numbers alone tell differently – Gerd Muller is still unique in the history of football: he scored more goals for the national team than the games he played. Pele and Maradona don’t come even close to his average. And his manner of playing was also unique, so… perhaps fielding him a little longer… perhaps only in important games… perhaps not asking him to help in defense… which was not a solution after all, but just depending on Muller. But he said ‘no’. And he was not alone, so let’s see who was gone after the World Cup.
Only one player was not a problem: Hottges. The iron full back was not a starter since 1972, serving as reserve for Bertie Vogts. He appeared only once at the World Cup finals and only as a substitute. He exited quietly largely because Vogts was great and young enough. Grabowski also announced his retirement from the national team – looks like he and Muller told Schon early and the general public learned later. By itself, Grabowski’s retirement was not big deal – he was getting old and after three World Cups not only he felt it was time to call it a day. The trouble was that he left the team along with Muller and suddenly there was no centre-forward at all, the position was empty. And not only this one, but the whole attacking line – Erwin Kremers was gradually benched after 1972 and was just unused reserve at the World Cup. Jupp Heynckes lost his place during the World Cup as well and somehow never played strongly for the national team again – the second best goalscorer in the Bundesliga at the time failed to score for West Germany and obviously not a replacement for Muller. Attack was in trouble, and, unfortunately, not only the attack – Overath seemingly retired from the national team as well, for he did not play for West Germany after the World Cup. A new whole opened… for Netzer was the same age as Overath. Even with Beckenbauer in the team, there was a need of a playmaker in midfield and there was none. Schon and Netzer hardly tolerated each other anyway, but now a truce was impossible – aging Netzer was not in good form and reluctant to play, which made him more erattic than ever. After a struggle to a 1-1 tie against Greece in Dusseldorf on October 11, 1975 Netzer announced that he was no longer to play for West Germany. He was joined by his teammate in Real Madrid Paul Breitner – perhaps the only player able to step into playmaker’s shoes. Both appeared only twice after winning the World Cup – in Sofia, against Bulgaria, April 27, 1975 and then against Greece in October. Both matches were sluggish disgrace of football, ending 1-1, and the flamboyant moody stars were not willing to take it anymore: both severely criticized the way German football was organized and said that they don’t want to be part of it. Half of the team was gone… key positions were empty. Uli Hoeness was not available either, for he was struggling with injuries, which eventually cut his career short.
Instead of continuation of winning formula by quiet replacement of player now, another later, a third in a year, Schon had practically to build a new team – which was not the concept he had, and readjusting proved difficult. Schon was unable to revolutionize his own thinking and start from scratch – instead, he tried to continue his original concept, which increasingly appeared more as an chaotic patchwork than visionary rebuilding. Almost a full squad of players were introduced to the national team – W. Seel, R. Geye, K. H. Korbel, J. Pirrung, B. Dietz, R. Seeliger, B. Nickel, E. Kostedde, M. Ritschel, U. Kliemann, E. Beer, D. Danner, F. Keller, U. Stielike, B. Gersdorff, M. Kaltz, R. Kargus, R. Worm, H. Bongartz, K. Toppmoller, and finally – at the European Championship final – Dieter Muller. Most of them were strikers and nobody a playmaker – showing scary deficit of talent, for the best part of the new national players were not exactly young and not really stars, but rather well established second-stringers. Good for smaller clubs, but never attracting the interest of Bayern or Borussia. Many names, but they did not last longer than a match or two.
Infusing new blood – B. Gersdorff and E. Beer in the friendly with Austria. The new blood was rather stale… Beer was 28 years old, for instance.
The rollercoaster was largely good for trivia… for the first time a black player donned German jersey.
Erwin Kostedde on snow… well, he was not ‘black’ – strictly speaking, he was mulatto, born in Germany, so snow was not a challenge to him. Born in 1946, Kostedde had checkered career so far – starting with SC Preussen (Munster), and moving to MSV Duisburg, Standard (Liege, Belgium), and Kickers (Offenbach), before joining Hertha (West Berlin) for 1974-75 season. There were more clubs to follow… including a new spell with Standard (Liege) and a spell in France. Big star he never was – the fact he played for so many clubs, but rarely longer than a season, suggests clearly he was not born to be a great footballer. But he scored plenty, including the Bundesliga goal of the season in 1974. His inclusion in the German national team suggests desperation, not improvement. It also suggests a crisis and absence of talent, for Kostedde debuted when 29 years old – Gerd Muller, born one year before Kostedde, already felt too old to play for Germany. As for lasting impressions… one may safely say the new striker made none: he played a grand total of 3 matches, scoring no goals.

Group 8 was originally seen as the easiest group – West Germany, Bulgaria, Greece, and Malta. Two non-entities and half dead Bulgaria – and the World Champions. Even prediction was pointless. It was the group not to be commented… it was so clear: West Germany casually will qualify and only then one should be looking.
It turned out differently. Very differently, in fact, although the development was not based on great football and fun. Malta was not to be counted at all, but so was Greece – the Greeks were expected to beat Malta and lose from both Bulgaria and West Germany. Bulgaria was still considered superior to Greece, but not a challenge to the Germans. The final table was made at the moment of the draw. Then games started…
Bulgaria was in big crisis – the disgrace at the World Cup alarmed and outraged everybody concerned with football in Bulgaria. The usual way of dealing with disappointments was a call of ‘massive change’, typically amounting to making a new team. At least in words – in reality, it was always a chaos: new players, old players, different coaches, but no visible program in place. Unfortunately, the Bulgarians were unable to really evaluate the state of football in the country: it was considered that only the squad at the World Cup was getting old and lame. The true picture became clear when the qualifications for the European championship started: things were worse than imagined. In short, Bulgarian football in the 1970s was in a big crisis – there were not really good players emerging. The pool of talent was terribly short. The slap in the face came Greece: instead of easy win, Bulgaria struggled to win a point in Sofia – 3-3, and the Greeks played better. At the end, the only wins Bulgaria got were against Malta and the ‘best’ match was the home against West Germany. Bulgaria finished third.
Greece was the surprise team: neither Bulgaria, nor West Germany managed to win against the Greeks. However, Malta did – the only points Malta got, a surprise on its own.
Greece, surprising even themselves: left to right: A. Glezos, K. Eleftherakis, H. Terzanidis, S. Sarafis, Y. Delikaris, T. Palas, Y. Firos, K. Iosifidis, A. Andoniadis, P. Ikonomopoulos, D. Papaioanou.
A great team they were not, but a beginning – certainly. From 1975 the progress of Greek football was getting steady and increasingly visible. The first real fruits were come in few years time, but the first steps were made by this squad – players already having experience and confidence with Panathinaikos. Olympiakos was improving as well; the impact of foreign players was good for Greek football; some players were well known, if not considered big stars, around Europe – Andoniadis, Ikonomopoulos. Younger players were eager to follow in the steps of the Greek stars – Domazos was increasingly challenged by others and finding that he had no longer a guaranteed place in the national team. Glezos, Eleftherakis, Papaioanou, and especially Delikaris were getting well respected in Europe. Greece was no longer a weakling, a donor of points to others – and it happened during the qualifying stage for the 1976 European championship. Greece was still not strong enough to go ahead, but it was getting close. A team on the rise.
1.WEST GERMANY 6 3 3 0 14- 4 9
2.Greece 6 2 3 1 12- 9 7
3.Bulgaria 6 2 2 2 12- 7 6
4.Malta 6 1 0 5 2-20 2
At the end it mattered not who ended second and who third – the World Champions quilifyed, as expected. The final table looks neat: the Germans did not lose a match; scored most goals; received least - no problem, clear domination. But the table misleads.
The line-up for the home game with Malta on February 28, 1976: left to right: Beckenbauer, Maier, Schwarzenbeck, Heynckes, Wimmer, R. Worm, Holzenbein, B. Dietz, E. Beer, U. Stielike, Vogts.
Strange names? Well, against Malta – nothing strange: just an opportunity to try new candidates. And rightly so – the new Germans won 8-0. As they should… except closer look brings questions: before this match, their last in the group, the Germans scored only 6 goals in 5 games against inferior teams. Greece scored more… and had equal points. It was this match with Malta to save West Germany from disgrace and to create a final record which looks great on paper. The reigning World Champions barely qualified for the second round and were ridden by troubles during the campaign. They did not play a single good game! Experiments with the squad were not real experiments, but almost desperate efforts to make somewhat strong team – and the experiments were failing.
It all started at the end at the 1974 World Cup – when Franz Beckenbauer voiced a heavy warning. German football was on the verge of crisis, he said. There were no new bright players and there was a need of radical change in training methods and vision in order of producing stars. What German football was making was sameness: mass production coming out of a factory. Beckenbauer’s criticism was discarded – it was party time and what could be wrong in a country just winning a World Cup? Let’s go for the beer and the cake… we are best!
Cake and beer. It was normal after all – if one is not celebrating conquering the world, then what? Joyous months of countless celebrations and receptions. Everybody happy, posing for the next photo.
Schon cuts the cake. Hoeness, Muller, and Maier behind looking not picture-perfect happy.