Lothar Matthäus

• 1. Introduction

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  Lothar Matthäus was born on the 21st of March 1961 in Erlangen, Bavaria, to a father who had fled across the Oder River in 1944 ahead of the Soviet advance. That backstory of escape and reinvention threads quietly through everything that followed. Matthäus grew up near Nuremberg and took his first competitive steps with 1. FC Herzogenaurach, a small Bavarian club he would return to decades later. By the time he hung up his boots, he had made 150 international appearances across 20 years, captained West Germany to a World Cup, become the first FIFA World Player of the Year, and appeared at five separate World Cup tournaments. No other outfield player had ever done that. Diego Maradona, who faced him in two World Cup finals, offered what might be the most compressed assessment of a player's career on record: "He is the best rival I've ever had. I guess that's enough to define him." What made Matthäus the rival that Maradona chose above all others? And how did a box-to-box midfielder from a small Bavarian town become the most capped German player in history?

• 2. The Complete Midfielder

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  Journalist Jacques Thibert, writing for France Football when awarding Matthäus the 1990 Ballon d'Or, offered an unusual piece of praise. He described Matthäus as a player who, despite not being sublime in any single individual skill, was good in every aspect of the game. That all-round quality allowed him to function comfortably across the entire pitch. At Inter Milan, under manager Giovanni Trapattoni, that versatility sharpened into something more specific. Thibert credited Trapattoni directly with turning Matthäus into a more creative, assertive, and rhythmic player. In Inter's three-man midfield, Matthäus played either as a deep-lying playmaker in a free role, or as an offensive left-sided central midfielder in the mezzala role. His partners in that setup included Nicola Berti and, depending on the match, either Gianfranco Matteoli or Sergio Battistini as defensive midfielder. Later, when the German national team manager Berti Vogts decided to shift an older, injury-hampered Matthäus into a sweeper role, the adjustment suited him well. From deep, he could defend, launch offensive runs into opposing territory, and read the game to shape Bayern's attacking shape. He was also an expert free kick and penalty taker, noted for the power of his strikes from set pieces. The quality that tied it all together was not technique or speed but the capacity to read a match and place himself exactly where he was needed.

• 3. From Gladbach to the San Siro

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  Matthäus began his professional career in 1979 with Borussia Mönchengladbach in the Bundesliga, staying there until 1984. His move to Bayern Munich that year brought him two Bundesliga titles and a DFB-Pokal, and he was in the side that reached the European Cup final in 1987. Bayern led FC Porto 1-0 for most of that game. Two late goals undid them. In 1988, Matthäus and Bayern teammate Andreas Brehme both signed with Inter Milan of Serie A. In their very first season, 1988-89, they won the Scudetto. They also took the Italian Supercup that year. Matthäus continued building at Inter, adding the UEFA Cup in 1991 after scoring a penalty in the first leg of the final against Roma. He returned to Bayern Munich in 1992 and over the following years won four more Bundesliga titles, two more DFB-Pokals, and another UEFA Cup. The one trophy that continually escaped him was the UEFA Champions League. In the 1999 final against Manchester United, Bayern led 1-0 when Matthäus was substituted off in the 80th minute. Manchester United scored two goals in the final minutes. He removed his runners-up medal immediately after receiving it. His last official Bayern match came on the 8th of March 2000 in Munich, a Champions League tie against Real Madrid that Bayern won 4-1.

• 4. Five World Cups

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  Matthäus made his international debut on the 14th of June 1980 in a 3-2 first-round win against the Netherlands at UEFA Euro 1980, a tournament West Germany won in Italy. At the 1982 World Cup in Spain he appeared as a substitute in group stage games, including the notorious Disgrace of Gijón match against Austria. West Germany reached the final in Madrid, losing 3-1 to Italy at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium. By 1986 he had a regular place in Mexico, scoring the winner against Morocco in the round of 16. In the final at the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City, coach Franz Beckenbauer assigned him to mark Diego Maradona personally. Maradona did not score that day, but his pass to Jorge Burruchaga with six minutes left in regulation set up Argentina's winning goal. West Germany lost 3-2. The 1990 World Cup, held in Italy, was the peak. Six of West Germany's squad played professionally in Serie A, and the team used Inter's home ground, the San Siro, for most of their matches. Matthäus led from midfield and scored four goals including two in the opening 4-1 win against Yugoslavia and the only goal of the quarter-final against Czechoslovakia, converted from a penalty in the 25th minute. The final was a rematch against Argentina at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome. This time West Germany won 1-0, with Andreas Brehme converting a penalty in the 85th minute. Matthäus later said playing that World Cup in Italy felt "like playing a World Cup at home." He lifted the last World Cup trophy before German reunification. At USA '94, now operating as sweeper, he scored a penalty in the quarter-final against Bulgaria at Giants Stadium in New York City, but the Bulgarians scored twice in three minutes to eliminate the defending champions. His absence from the squad between tournaments, caused partly by feuding with captain Jürgen Klinsmann and coach Berti Vogts, meant Germany won UEFA Euro 1996 in England without him. Then, in 1998, he was called up to the France World Cup as a replacement for the injured Matthias Sammer. He became the second player in history to appear at five different World Cup tournaments, tying the long-standing record of Mexican goalkeeper Antonio Carbajal. Croatia eliminated Germany 3-0 in Lyon in the quarter-finals, taking Matthäus to a then-record 25 World Cup appearances.

• 5. Coaching Abroad

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  One year after retiring as a player, Matthäus moved into coaching. His stated ambition was to manage in the German Bundesliga, and he believed that taking jobs abroad would eventually bring those offers. They never did, and he said so openly. In a lengthy November 2009 interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, he complained that German clubs considered him too closely associated with Bayern and too linked to the Bild tabloid to trust with a head coaching post. His first appointment was at SK Rapid Wien in the Austrian Bundesliga from the 6th of September 2001 until the 14th of May 2002. Results were mixed: Rapid reached the second round of the UEFA Cup and the round of 16 in the Austrian Cup, but finished eighth in the league. In December 2002, Serbian club FK Partizan hired him mid-season. He inherited a team already at the top of the table and steered them to the 2002-03 league title, at one point extending the gap over second-placed Red Star Belgrade to 19 points. The high point came in August 2003 when Partizan eliminated Newcastle United in the Champions League qualifying round. After losing the first leg 0-1 at home, Partizan won 0-1 away at St. James' Park and took the tie to extra time and then penalties. In the seventh round of the shootout, right back Milivoje Cirković scored the decisive kick. Matthäus had turned his back to the pitch and could not watch. Partizan were then drawn into a group with Real Madrid, eventual champions FC Porto, and Olympique de Marseille, and finished last. Matthäus resigned abruptly on the 13th of December 2003, and days later it was confirmed he had agreed terms with the Hungarian Football Federation. A dispute over unpaid contract bonuses followed, including a claimed US$600,000 tied to the transfer of Igor Duljaj to Shakhtar Donetsk, which Matthäus pursued before the Sports Arbitration Court in Lausanne. His time with Hungary, which began on the 14th of December 2003, ended with the national team finishing fourth in their 2006 World Cup qualifying group with 14 points, behind Croatia on 25 and Sweden on 24. He left the post on the 11th of January 2006. Later coaching roles took him to Athletico Paranaense in Brazil, where he resigned after seven matches and eventually faxed in his resignation on the 20th of March without returning to collect his belongings; to Red Bull Salzburg, where he co-led the team to the Austrian league title before being fired on the 12th of June 2007; to Maccabi Netanya in Israel; and to the Bulgarian national team, where he was sacked on the 19th of September 2011.

• 6. Records and Legacy

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  Matthäus retired from international football having earned 150 caps across 20 years, 83 of them for West Germany before reunification. He scored 23 international goals. He remains the most capped German player of all time. Pelé selected him for the FIFA 100 list of the greatest living football players. In 2020, he was included in the Ballon d'Or Dream Team. In 1999, at the age of 38, he was voted German Footballer of the Year for the second time, having first won the award in 1990. He is still the only German to have won the FIFA World Player of the Year award, which he received in 1991. In 2018, at age 57, he came out of retirement to play 50 minutes of 1. FC Herzogenaurach's final league game of the season. The club had already secured the title. He said at the time: "It was always my dream to play my last competitive game here." That final appearance at Herzogenaurach, the same small Bavarian club where he had spent his youth, closed a circle that had opened nearly four decades earlier, while his record of 25 World Cup appearances stood until Lionel Messi eventually surpassed it.