Brehme, Germany’s World Cup winner who scored penalties with both feet, dies

Left-back won Bundesliga with Bayern Munich and Kaiserslautern, before moving to Italy where he won Serie A and Uefa Cup with Inter Milan

For English football fans of a certain generation, Andreas Brehme was the ultimate thwarter of ambition. The brilliant German defender, who has died of a cardiac arrest at the age of 63, was the epitome of the old Gary Lineker line about football being a simple game and the Germans always winning.
It was him, with a little help from a deflection off Paul Parker, who scored the free-kick that gave West Germany the lead over England in the 1990 World Cup semi-final. It was him who scored the first German penalty in the ensuing shoot-out after Lineker had equalised. And it was Brehme, inevitably, who scored the only goal in the final against Argentina, converting from the penalty spot in the 85th minute to take the trophy back to Berlin.
Here is the thing, however, that truly marked him out: the semi-final free-kick he took with his left foot, the penalty with his right. But then he might have taken the free-kick with his right and the penalty with his left: no one, not even his international manager Franz Beckenbauer, could tell you with any certainty which was his stronger. Not that such a selection was necessary: left and right foot were both equally deadly.
When he scored in the 1986 World Cup quarter-final shoot-out against Mexico he used his left, in the semi-final and final four years later it was his right he applied. This was not done to confuse a goalkeeper who had done his homework, either. Brehme would simply run up to the spot and kick it with whichever foot he fancied at the time. Because this was the ultimate ambidextrous footballer. Plus one with an extraordinary ability to remain calm under pressure in order to put his talent to good effect.
“We didn’t practise penalties,” Brehme once told FourFourTwo magazine, completely undermining the assumption that Germany’s success in those days was based on preparation and planning. “We never really had a first choice [penalty taker]. There was myself, [Rudi] Völler and [Lothar] Matthäus, and we usually played it by ear depending on who felt best about taking it. Lothar didn’t fancy it [in the 1990 World Cup final]. I didn’t mind who took it, so I offered. It might surprise people, but I wasn’t nervous at all as I ran up.”
Brehme’s cool was unquestionably a significant part of why Germany became the dominant force in world football in the late Eighties and early Nineties. He played in three successive World Cups and three European Championships, reaching three finals and winning one of them. A hugely intelligent presence at full-back, he was as sharp nurturing an attack as he was at snuffling out danger. For 86 internationals, his was the first name on the team sheet.
And he was no less successful in his club career. He started out at Kaiserslautern, before a move to Bayern Munich that led to him winning his first league title. He then transferred to Inter Milan, where he won Serie A and the Uefa Cup, before he headed to Zaragoza for what at the time seemed a gentle plateau into retirement.
However, it was what happened next that he reckoned was the most significant moment in his stellar career. Aged 33, he re-signed for his boyhood club only to be relegated in his first season. But he stayed on at Kaiserslautern, a leader on the pitch, reorganising, sorting, cajoling. Such was his presence, not only did his team win promotion back to the top flight, they won the Bundesliga title the following season. And he remained at the heart of the side for another five years. No wonder, after he had finally retired, they made him manager, a post that, ultimately, he found less conducive to his skills.
His successes on the pitch, however, meant he remained a towering figure in German football. And last month he was one of those laying flowers on the Munich pitch in honour of his friend and mentor Beckenbauer. Now the German game has lost both of them in quick succession.