{"id":369327,"date":"2024-02-20T18:24:51","date_gmt":"2024-02-20T19:24:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=369327"},"modified":"2024-02-20T22:03:40","modified_gmt":"2024-02-20T22:03:40","slug":"cant-believe-it-world-cup-hero-dies-suddenly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=369327","title":{"rendered":"'Can't believe it': World Cup 'hero' dies 'suddenly'"},"content":{"rendered":"

Germany\u2019s 1990 World Cup<\/a> hero Andreas Brehme has died.<\/p>\n

Brehme endeared himself to the nation in the final when he scored a late penalty after team captain Lothar Matth\u00e4us\u2019 boots broke to give West Germany a 1-0 win over Diego Maradona\u2019s Argentina.<\/p>\n

Brehme\u2019s partner Susanne Schaefer told Germany\u2019s dpa news agency on Tuesday that he died \u201csuddenly and unexpectedly\u201d in the night from a cardiac arrest. He was 63.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI can\u2019t believe it at all. The news of Andreas\u2019 sudden death makes me incredibly sad,\u201d national teammate Rudi V\u00f6ller said. \u201cAndi was our World Cup hero, but for me he was much more. He was my close friend and companion to this day. I will miss his wonderful love of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Known affectionately as \u201cAndi\u201d Brehme, the Hamburg-born player was a star of German football in the 1980s and 1990s. He played mostly as an attacking left back and will always be associated with the 1990 World Cup triumph.<\/p>\n

\"Andreas<\/p>\n

He scored in the semi-final against England, which West Germany eventually won on penalties, and his penalty decided the final. Winning the title brought a wave of national celebrations across Germany, which was in the process of reunification after the fall of the Berlin Wall the year before.<\/p>\n

Brehme\u2019s title-winning goal in Rome was also celebrated a short distance away at Inter Milan, the Italian club he was playing for at the time as part of a formidable German trinity including national teammates Matth\u00e4us and J\u00fcrgen Klinsmann.<\/p>\n

As captain, Matth\u00e4us would normally have taken West Germany\u2019s penalty in the final, but the No.10 broke his boots in the first half and didn\u2019t feel confident as his replacement boots were too big.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a smart decision to let Andreas Brehme take the penalty,\u201d Matth\u00e4us later said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone has to step up. And for us, it was a case of whoever was feeling confident,\u201d Brehme said in a FIFA interview in 2017. \u201cThe main thing is that the penalty goes in and we become world champions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brehme acknowledged the penalty decision was \u201cdubious\u201d though that didn\u2019t stop him from tucking away the spot kick against the previously unbeatable Argentina goalkeeper Sergio Goycochea in the 85th minute. West Germany had dominated the game but found Goycochea in inspired form.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat night at the Olimpico, facing up against Sergio Goycochea, a fearsome goalkeeper who had already kept out Donadoni and Aldo Serena at the San Paolo, Brehme opted to take with his right (boot). A placed effort, almost caressed towards goal: he zipped it along the floor, right into the bottom left, unstoppable,\u201d Inter wrote on the club website.<\/p>\n

Brehme, who wheeled away and jumped in celebration, had already helped Inter to the Serie A title in 1989. He would go to win the UEFA Cup with the club two years later.<\/p>\n

\u201cA magnificent player, a true Interista. Ciao Andy, forever a legend,\u201d said Inter, which announced that it would wear black armbands during its Champions League match against Atl\u00e9tico Madrid on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Brehme\u2019s death comes the month after that of his friend Franz Beckenbauer, who coached the World Cup-winning team in 1990.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Germany\u2019s 1990 World Cup hero Andreas Brehme has died. Brehme endeared himself to the nation in the final when he scored a late penalty after […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":369331,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369327"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=369327"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":369333,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369327\/revisions\/369333"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/369331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=369327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=369327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=369327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}