England - Deutschland 1-3:
No Englishman can ever again warm himself with the old assumption that, on the football field if nowhere else, the Germans are an inferior race.
Last night at Wembley a West German team playing with grace and spirit and an absolute commitment to attack administered the most thorough defeat ever inflicted on Sir Alf Ramsey's England on their own ground. This, the first victory any German side has won over England in this country, was undeniably deserved.
It makes the personal score between Ramsey and Helmut Schoen, West Germany's coach, 3-3 but Schoen has now had three successes in a row and he is clearly in the ascendant. He will go into the second leg of this European Nations' Cup quarter-final in Berlin two weeks from now confident of winning on aggregate. The German decision to choose a team geared to aggression was vindicated long before the interval. Once they had emerged from the panicky turmoil induced in their defence by England's opening assault, they settled to play composed, intelligent but surgingly ambitious football.
Almost immediately they strengthened the misgivings about the wisdom of Sir Alf Ramsey's unexpected policy of manning the midfield with three players noted for what they can do with the ball, rather than what they can do to get it. If that policy had been a failure in Athens earlier in the competition, now it was a disaster.
The boldness involved in omitting a hard physical competitor such as Mullery or Storey might have been less severely punished if Bell had been at his most thrustful and dominating. But the Manchester City man was a displaced person much of the time. And all his straining efforts to impose an influence could not reduce his remoteness from the vital areas of action.
Ball, flourishing his fist at members of his own team who appeared less than utterly resolute and occasionally flourishing studs at Germans who came in his way, did his best to promote an English takeover in the middle of the field. But neither he nor Peters could subdue the creative alliance of Netzer, Hoeness and Wimmer.
These three are not merely exceptional players. They are marvellously complementary. Throughout the first half Wimmer used his strength and pace to carry the ball with menacing swiftness out of defence, and the inspired Netzer was always available to explode out of his normal strolling gait into a thrilling penetrating gallop.
Hoeness adds an incisive positional sense to his fine technique and unselfish mobility and he made difficulties for England wherever he appeared. He was particularly damaging when moving wide to support the runs of Grabowski and Held.
Against such well-conceived attacking, England's full-backs could be forgiven their not infrequent moments of uneasiness.
Both Madeley and Hughes(though he fully earned Ramsey's praise) had ample reason to be grateful that Hunter was covering with a consuming vigour. The Leeds defender devoted much of his energy to policing Muller, but he had an adequate overspill to discourage any other German forward who came within reach of that steel claw of a left leg.
Nevertheless Moore, with his natural tendency to stand off forwards, missed the help of a contact player at centre half. Yet it was hard to anticipate just how serious his problems would be when his team began confidently on a Wembley pitch left as lush as an Irish meadow by the rain that returned during the match.
It seemed a happy omen when Beckenbauer, the German captain, was the first to be disconcerted by England's initial pressure. Beckenbauer was flustered into misdirecting a bad pass to Lee and there followed almost a minute of hectic confusion in which Chivers, Bell and Lee himself went frustratingly close to scoring. Maier gained respite at last by dropping on a shot from Bell and both Beckenbauer and his goalkeeper were brilliant from then on.
Any Englishman who felt there was to be slaughtering revenge for that afternoon in Leon two years ago was soon disillusioned as the Germans began to attack with sweeping elegance.
One graceful German move gave Grabowski an opening for a fierce shot from 25 yards. A deflection off Hunter might have meant trouble, but instead it lifted the ball over the crossbar. From the corner Banks punched the ball perilously close to Muller's feet without paying a penalty.
England were not, of course, subdued. Hughes, taking a return pass on the edge of the area, was obliged to shoot with his left foot. It is his weaker one, but the shot was powerful enough to look deadly when the ball ricocheted off Beckenbauer's back. Maier was in contorted disarray until it landed on the top of his net.
Netzer again alarmed England with a magnificently direct run that took him all of 50 yards and into the heart of the opposition's territory before he slid the ball short to Muller. Muller succeeded in squeezing a shot through Hughes's legs, but Banks scrambled the ball wide for a corner.
The goalkeeper's relief was sadly temporary. In the twenty-seventh minute Moore loitered over a clearance and permitted Muller and Held, to make room for Hoeness in an inside-left position. Hoeness struck a sudden right foot shot from 20 yards, and the ball spun off Hunter and flew viciously past Banks's right side and into the net.
Lee, who had started unimpressively, was now more assertive and after misusing a chance for a scoring header by the far post he met a headed clearance with a great falling volley. Maier's save, like all his work, was admirable. Peters, first from 25 yards and then from almost on the goal-line, nearly scored towards the end of the half, but the Germans were soon flooding towards Banks again.
England restarted forcefully, but their front men were no more convincing than those in midfield. Chivers had a shot charged down and from Hughes's cross Hurst drove high over, left footed. But the German's were quickly rolling the ball around with their first half assurance and skill.
When Madeley slipped to let Muller into the left-hand corner of the penalty area, Hunter surged across to scramble the ball away. Muller dived, more in hope than anything else, but the referee was in no mood to be generous. Hughes, put though by Ball, got in a dangerous cross which was turned for a corner by Breitner, and as England began to batter away at the mass of green shirts, the crowd repeated their earlier demands for Rodney Marsh. This time they got him, Hurst being withdrawn for the Manchester City forward. At once England were galvanised. Madeley slipped Grabowski and fed Bell, but his pass left Ball with too sharp an angle to evade Maiers's arms.
With Hughes and Madeley now fully committed to attacking support, Germany were pinned back for the first time since the opening minutes.
England nearly took the goal they were chasing when from Moore's cross Hughes met the ball briskly, left-footed on the half volley, but it struck the top of the crossbar and bounced over.
Another deep, searching cross from Moore was met by Peter's head and Maier had to plunge anxiously to his right to hold the ball. With the free kicks coming more rapidly, Madeley brought down Muller with a tackle which had the German press box seats thumping in anger.
One piece of jugglery by Marsh failed to bring a profitable response from Bell; and when Maier finally lost a high centre, Marsh himself saw his looping header easily cleared from near the line by Hoettges.
Though it seemed unlikely that England's aggression would produce a goal, they equalised dramatically in the seventy-sixth minute. Ball fouled Wimmer, badly, but the referee astonishingly waved play on. The Arsenal man moved the ball forward to Bell, who exchanged passes with Peters before striking a fierce angled shot which Maier could only beat down. This time the ball bounced towards the far post, where Lee joyfully ran it and himself into the back of the net.
England were level for only seven minutes. Their understandable willingness to thrust players forward always made them vulnerable to the German capacity for sudden breaks. Held was often prominent in these and now he went sprinting wide of Moore on the left wing.
As Held veered towards Banks, Moore with his last stretching attempt at a tackle brought the forward down heavily. English complaints about the award of a penalty were no more sustained than they had right to be.
Banks's unique ability merely made the penalty a more miserable experience for England. Lunging instantly to the right as Netzer made contact with the ball, the goalkeeper pushed it on to the post, but it spun back behind his right shoulder and England seemed halfway out of the Nations Cup.
The worst defeat a Ramsey team have ever suffered at Wembley was given its final shape two minutes from the finish. A thrown pass from Banks in response to Hughes's call was badly fumbled by the back and Held readily dispossessed him. The ball was moved on to Hoeness and he ran across the edge of the area, staying just clear of Hunter's challenge.
But even when Hoeness passed forward to Muller there was no real reason to fear a goal. At least there would not have been if the ball had gone to any other German. Muller is special. In one devastatingly fluent movement he made a full pivot and swept the ball with his right foot low inside Banks's post. The only flags to be seen now were German.
England - Banks, Madeley, Hughes, Bell, Moore, Hunter, Lee, Ball, Chiverk, Hurst, Peters. Sub: Marsh
West Germany - Maier, Hoettges, Breitner, Schwarzenbeck, Beckenbauer, Wimmer, Grabowski, Hoeness, Muller, Netzer, Held.
Referee - R Helies (France)
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