Der Bomber sets sight on finding goal again

The best goalscorer of all time? Few would argue. He won everything.But since his net-busting heyday of the late 1970’s, while his records remained unbroken, the man himself nearly was by alcohol. Fading glory and boredom combined with the opportunities created by owning his own bar in Fort Lauderdale while he played in America in the twilight of his career turned him into an alcoholic so surreptitiously he hardly knew it had happened.

“I did not realise, I just did not know,” he said as he sat in the offices at Bayern’s training fields where, now, nearly 10 years on, he works as a coach to the Bavarian club’s under-21’s.

“Then, they just saved me from it.”

The“they” Muller referred to were his friends and former team-mates Uli Hoeness and Franz Beckenbauer.

Now general-manager and president of Bayern Munich respectively, these two are at the centre of the long-awaited overhaul of German football, set in motion recently when Beckenbauer became vice-president of the German Football Association (DFB). Some have already claimed this is the biggest challenge of Beckenbauer’s life and success could be his most important triumph.

This, according to those who work around them in the offices at Bayern, is not true — their greatest moment came in the salvation of 53-year-old Muller’s life.

Muller was back in Munich, jobless and drinking, when he bottomed out, but without the single chilling moment of depression that made him catch his own face in the mirror of life. Hoeness rescued him, organised his entry into a clinic south of Munich, arranged for his costs to be met by an insurance claim, supported him as much as possible and warned him that he had to stay soberto keep the job that lay ahead.

As he talked, Muller’s spectacles glinted in the wintry sunshine above a trimmed grey beard which gave him a semi-academic air. He hardly looked like a retired goalscorer, but Muller confirmed the existence of his greatest fear.

He dreads a return to the bottles of beer, wine, whisky other spirits which wrecked his life, upset his marriage to Uschi and his relationship with his only daughter in the days before Hoeness took him by the scruff of the neck in 1990.

“Now, when I go to a dinner, any kind of function, anywhere, I always check the food and the drinks first,” he said. “I ask about the sauces on the meat, the cream in the puddings. I need to know if there is any alcohol anywhere.

“I never want to go back and it only takes one drop. I was lucky because Uli saved me. Bayern saved me. My family helped me. I did not understand any of it. I was incapable of helping myself until Uli helped me.”

For Paul Gascoigne, the recovering English star who was recentlyadmitted to an alcholics’ clinic, he has understanding. “He needs his friends and he needs support to help through this time,” he said.

“That is so important. It takes so much to get through this time. At my clinic, they wanted me to stay longer. But I was there for four weeks and it was enough for me. I came out and have stayed out.”

Muller’s bravest act has been repeated every day since. It was not a goal which won a Bundesliga title, or those which helped Bayern Munich lift European Cup for three successive years in 1974, 1975 and 1976, or any in his personal assault on the World Cup’s striking records. No, it is in his determination to stay dry, respected and employed by Bayern — the club he loves which has dragged him back from near-oblivion.

“I have incredible respect for him,” said Karin Potthoff, Hoeness’s secretary. “I knew him as a player and as a man and have known him these last 10 years. He has a true strength of character. Now we all feel like friends with him here at Bayern. Ithink that is part of his strength too.”Muller himself, back living in a tracksuit, is content. His days are filled with training boys and youths. He takes satisfaction in seeing them grow and improve, but admits, with harsh realism, that the raw talent of his own generation no longer seems to exist. “There is too much else in the world now for boys,” he said.

“It is difficult for everyone. Goalscorers are not made, they come naturally. But the standards everywhere are not what they were. Ronaldo? he is, I think, a little over-rated. “I think there is too much sport, too much money, television and other entertainment. Yes, too many temptations….”

His story is an example that many of today’s players can learn from.