“Would certainly have reached the class of Pele”

On his 80th birthday, Günter Netzer looks back on his active football career with satisfaction – although, according to his own statements, he still had a lot of room for improvement.

“I wasn’t so obsessed with absolute success, otherwise I would certainly have reached the class of Pele, with more ambition,” said the former world and European champion in an interview with kicker.

During his time at Borussia Mönchengladbach (1963-1973) he was given “concessions so that I could play football the way I wanted to,” said Netzer, who celebrates his birthday on Saturday.

But he couldn’t demand this in the national team, “because the players came from different clubs and weren’t as attuned to me as the Gladbach players were.”

His companions Franz Beckenbauer and Wolfgang Overath had to convince him to join the national team “with a gun to his back”. “They always said that fame in the club is wonderful, and you enjoy it and are rightly the best there, but only through the national team do you become world famous,” said Netzer: “I understood that, but I wasn’t prepared to make the sacrifices necessary for it.”

Netzer had to suffer at Real Madrid

At Real Madrid (1973-1976), however, he had to work with a fitness coach. This was “something great,” “even though I suffered so much because I had never trained like that in my life,” Netzer said. He also sometimes checked himself and said to himself: “If it had been like that your whole life, with this level of fitness, then maybe you would have become Pele.”

Nevertheless, he “never regretted anything”. He described himself as “a lucky child who was able to experience this and whose career developed in a way that I could not have imagined better”. Even today, he would not approach his career with more ambition or determination; these attributes are “not part of my character”, said Netzer.