World Cup 2026

[Vesper 31,180]

The Soccer 100: Gerd Müller — Germany’s greatest goalscorer

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7198965/2026/05/29/world-cup-gerd-muller-germany-bayern-soccer-100/

As part of our buildup to the 2026 FIFA men’s World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico, we are publishing excerpted chapters from The Soccer 100, The Athletic’s definitive book on the 100 greatest players of all time, courtesy of HarperCollins Publishers.

The 10 players we are featuring are the highest-ranked World Cup winners of our 100. Today, it’s the prolific striker, ranked 13th in our original list, who scored for West Germany in the 1974 final.

---

There is one thing every footballer in this book has in common.

It’s a bit technical, so apologies for blinding you with jargon here, and please don’t feel too bad if you don’t completely follow, but here it is: They’re all really good at football.

Well, that’s sort of true. It depends on what you mean by “really good at football.” One of them did not boast the same skill or grace or innovation or mystery or fantasy as the others. He wasn’t so much really good at football, but really good at scoring goals. Are those two things different? Maybe not. But Gerd Müller made up for not being stellar at the other stuff, the things we often talk about when we talk about the “greats”, by being maybe the best there ever was at the game’s most fundamental task.

Here are a few statistics.

He scored 365 goals in 427 Bundesliga games.

He scored 40 in one season, a record that stood for five decades.

He scored 85 for club and country in one calendar year.

He scored 68 in 77 European matches.

He scored an astonishing 68 in 62 international appearances for West Germany and would have managed many more had he not retired from the national team in 1974, aged 28, after the German federation banned the players’ wives from attending the post-World Cup victory celebration banquet.

Among those international goals, he scored 14 over 13 games at two World Cups, a record that stood for 32 years until it was broken by Brazil’s Ronaldo in 2006.

Gerd Müller (right) guides a header beyond Australia goalkeeper Jack Reilly and defender Doug Utjesenovic at the 1974 World CupStaff/AFP via Getty Images

He scored 566 goals in 607 games for Bayern Munich, the club for whom he made his debut in 1964 when they were still playing in the German second tier and, along with Franz Beckenbauer, played as much of a role as anyone in making them the behemoth they are today.

He made it into double figures for league goals in each of his 14 full seasons with Bayern.

He can be forgiven for the only time he managed fewer than 10 league goals in a campaign with the club — Müller scored nine in 19 games in the first half of the 1978–79 campaign before moving to Fort Lauderdale Strikers in the United States.

Goals were his obsession, and it was the what rather than the how that consumed him. The method of the conversion did not matter, but the result did.

Müller would score by whatever means necessary: tap-ins, scuffed shots, headers from three yards out, in off the thigh, the shins, the torso, scooped in from the floor, left foot, right foot, head — whatever body part could propel a football over that line.

If you watch clips of Müller’s goals, one of the things you’ll notice is how often he just seems to… emerge. And then score. The ball will disappear into a melee of defenders, only for Müller to suddenly appear, completely free, like a cartoon character calmly stepping out of a cloud of flailing arms and legs. He appeared to have an ability to be in the right position to score, and often you weren’t entirely sure how he arrived there.

It’s pretty hard to explain how he did it. Some attribute it to his short, stocky frame, thus allowing him to have a low centre of gravity to wriggle away from hulking defenders, but also with the strength to muscle his way into advantageous positions. He had thighs like beer barrels and calves like hams, giving him the sort of power you might not expect from a relatively diminutive man.

Gerd Müller (left) scoring for his country against Poland at the 1974 World CupAFP via Getty Images

The most appealing, perhaps romantic, explanation for why he was so good is that it was something intangible. He could, in the traditions of the great goal poachers, smell opportunities. It all just happened. He just… knew. “You can’t learn that,” he said in a documentary produced by the Bundesliga. “You just have to have the instinct to score goals.”

Top FIFA MEN'S WORLD CUP Stories

 

After fumbling through reply on Milan, Pochettino reiterates pledge to USMNT

 

USMNT World Cup prep shifts from 'City That Never Sleeps' to ... a former cow pasture

 

What we're seeing and hearing from Canada's training camp — as players focus on 'winning'

Müller’s single-season Bundesliga scoring record of 40, set in 1971–72, was thought for decades to be insurmountable. In fact, between him setting it and Robert Lewandowski establishing himself as an elite striker in the mid-2010s, the only other players even to break 30 goals, never mind come close to the record, were Jupp Heynckes in 1973–74 and Dieter Müller (no relation) in 1976–77.

When it became clear that Lewandowski was going to break the record, as he did by scoring an extraordinary 41 for Bayern in 2020–21, it felt like there was a move in the German footballing consciousness to preserve Müller’s status as still the greatest striker their league had ever seen.

“Robert’s definitely a great striker, but he didn’t score goals like Gerd, with his shin, his chest, or his knee,” Uli Hoeneß told Bavarian newspaper Münchner Merkur. “Gerd didn’t care less how he got the ball in. It just had to go in any which way it could. Robert hammers it into the back of the net, but, with Gerd, sometimes the ball would just stop an inch over the line.”

That wasn’t just an old friend of Müller trying to protect his legacy. “In terms of efficiency, he’s second among the best-ever strikers of Bayern’s history after Gerd Müller,” Lewandowski’s Bayern team-mate Thomas Müller told newspaper Sport Bild.

Gerd Müller (left) and Paul Breitner celebrate West Germany’s success at the 1974 World CupAllsport/Getty Images

It felt like Lewandowski was as keen as anyone to defer to the great man: When he scored his 40th, equaling the record, he lifted up his Bayern jersey to reveal a T-shirt underneath with Müller’s face and the message “4ever Gerd.” There was a poignancy to the fact that, while Müller was alive when the record was broken, he was in a care home, suffering the last few months of the Alzheimer’s disease that would eventually claim his life.

Müller’s record-setting season was part of a record-setting year: In 1972, he registered a whopping 85 goals in 60 games for club and country, a mark that held until no less a man than Lionel Messi managed 91 in 2012. (Kids, if you’re reading this having previously not known much about Müller and take just one thing away from this section of the book, let it be that it took 40 years and the greatest player of all time to eclipse the German.)

He didn’t just score goals in quantity, but also quality — not in terms of them being spectacular strikes that would make golazo compilations for years to come, but crucial goals, high-pressure goals, trophy-winning goals.

He scored four in various German cup finals for Bayern, and three in two different European Cup finals; two in the 1972 European Championship final for West Germany; and, of course, their winner in the 1974 World Cup final. You can also throw in two in the “Game of the Century” — the 1970 World Cup semi-final that West Germany ultimately lost 4-3 to Italy, plus two in the 1972 Euros semi-final against Belgium and four in the two-legged 1967 Cup Winners’ Cup semi-final against Standard Liège of that same country, which Bayern would win and then go on to claim their first European trophy.

Which is to say that his goals didn’t just make for impressive statistics, but made his country continental and then world champions, and his club among the biggest in Europe. Or, as Beckenbauer put it while giving a speech at Müller’s 50th birthday party: “Without Gerd Müller, we’d probably still be in the wooden hut that was once our clubhouse. He’s the most important player in the history of Bayern.”

Gerd Müller scores West Germany’s second goal against the Netherlands in the 1974 World Cup finalAFP via Getty Images

The noble art of goal-poaching is often treated a little sniffily, but consider the following: Müller scored 14 World Cup goals for West Germany across the 1970 and 1974 tournaments.

Here are short descriptions of all of them: heads in a rebound off the crossbar from two yards out; turns home a low cross from about four yards; a penalty, high into the top corner; a header from a right-sided cross from about 10 yards; brings down a ball from deep on his chest, pokes in from seven yards; converts a low cross from six yards; header from seven yards; hooked in from three yards; bundled over the line from two yards; header from four yards; near-post header from five yards; miscontrol, then scooped in while on the floor from four yards; low finish from 13 yards; miscontrol, then steps back and scores from eight yards.

Obviously, the distances are all rough estimates, but from those descriptions, the average gap between Müller and the goal was about 6.2 yards. He barely needed to leave the six-yard box. Helmut Schön, the manager of West Germany at both those World Cups, famously described him as being “a man of small goals”. Again, that was not intended as an insult.

Take the winner in the 1974 final, which you can look at in a couple of ways: either as a stumble, a piece of opportunism, or a man mopping up his own mistake, having allowed the low cross to skew off the side of his boot. But watch it again with softer eyes and you may instead see a man showing incredibly quick reactions, followed by extraordinary strength to change direction so rapidly, implausible balance to avoid falling on his backside, and then great poise and finishing ability to shoot low into the corner, giving the goalkeeper no chance.

And you could go through plenty of his goals and give them similar treatment.

Just because they were from close in — or were not necessarily from chances created by him, or are not your typical screamers — does not mean they lack beauty or skill.

The Gerd Müller statue outside Bayern’s Allianz Arena home stadium in MunichChristof Stache/AFP via Getty Images

---

One thing that has sprung to mind repeatedly while considering all of the incredible names in this book is whether the great players from the past would be superstars today. Talents such as Johan Cruyff, Michel Platini, Pelé, Marco van Basten: It seems inconceivable that if they were born at the right time, with the advantages of modern training, nutrition, and so forth, they wouldn’t have been just as great.

With Müller, though, you’re not so sure. There isn’t much space in the modern game for someone who does not offer a huge amount other than goals, as absurd as that sounds. Maybe he would have adapted, but it feels like he existed in an era suited to him.

Müller makes for a pretty lousy highlights reel. There aren’t many stories about spectators lining up to gasp at his genius, few misty-eyed recollections of the time he made opponents look foolish. He wasn’t a meme-able footballer, nor one for whom a compilation of his best skills will blow up on YouTube.

He didn’t change the game. He didn’t innovate in the way that his contemporaries, Beckenbauer or Cruyff, did. He didn’t have a “move”. There’s a tendency toward over-intellectualising players like that, but not with Müller, which might explain why he often isn’t mentioned in the same breath as some of those other greats.

The Allianz Arena in Munich pays tribute to Gerd MüllerChristof Stache/AFP via Getty Images

Yet you could make a strong argument that he was the greatest pure footballer of all time because he was among the best at doing the purest thing the game has. There are so many things to find pleasurable in football: a brilliant piece of skill, a great pass, a crunching tackle, a player effortlessly controlling the game, a dummy, a subtle touch here and there. But ultimately, the point of it all is to score goals. You win games, and thus attain glory, by scoring goals. Gerd Müller scored goals.

In fact, his contribution to the language of football, in Germany at least, was to lend his name to a verb, but it wasn’t something unique to him: to müllern means to score. Which says it all, really: He was so associated with the scoring of goals that his name was not given to a turn or a trick or a position. It was bestowed on the most fundamental element of the sport.

---

Excerpted from The Soccer 100 by Oliver Kay & James Horncastle with The Athletic Soccer Staff, published by William Morrow. Copyright © 2025 by The Athletic Media Company. Reprinted courtesy of HarperCollins Publishers.

Nick Miller is a football writer for the Athletic and the Totally Football Show. He previously worked as a freelancer for the Guardian, ESPN and Eurosport, plus anyone else who would have him.

[Fulham Broadway 17,810]

 

[KEVINAA 130]

My New Zealand is playing a friendly International warmup match again Haiti later today at inter miami chase stadium in ford Lauderdale, florida and Haiti is ranked 83 and NZL is 85 fifa ranked currently.

https://www.flashscore.com/match/football/haiti-nk4v10Z1/new-zealand-rLctHkpU/

[Vesper 31,180]

Is there a justification for Cole Palmer’s England World Cup absence?

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7326700/2026/06/03/cole-palmer-world-cup-omission-analysis/

Thomas Tuchel’s explanation for not taking Cole Palmer to the World Cup was brutal in its honesty.

The England manager’s logic was undeniable.

Without context, leaving out the highest-ranked Englishman in last year’s Ballon d’Or (Palmer finished eighth, Harry Kane was 13th) could be regarded as hugely controversial. But the Chelsea forward did not play like one of the world’s best for the majority of the 2025-26 season and England’s alternative No 10 options are too strong for that to be overlooked.

In a press conference last month, Tuchel explained that not only had the 24-year-old lacked form for his club, but neither was he influential when representing England, citing “outstanding players” Jude Bellingham, Morgan Rogers and Eberechi Eze as better options in that position.

“His record with us was just not outstanding, not good enough to make him ‘no matter what, he is coming’,” the German explained. “That is just the reality of it.

“It is a very difficult decision. There is no question about his talent, there is no question what he can give you in special moments, but the decision was still against him.”

Palmer’s production for Chelsea plummeted last season. He only just crept into double figures for Premier League goals (10) on the final day against Sunderland. Half of his season’s tally were penalties. He registered only one assist in the league, a surprisingly low return for an elite passer who generated 19 across his first two seasons at Stamford Bridge.

The underlying numbers were even more worrying. Palmer’s chances created per game fell from 2.5 in 2024-25 to 1.1 last season, while his crosses dropped from 4.1 to 1.7. As you can see in the two graphics below, he exerted a huge creative influence from his favoured spot in the right half-space in 2024-25…

… but barely made an impression anywhere in the final third last season.

In an interview with the Guardian in April, Palmer was candid about the physical reason for his struggles: a groin injury unlike anything he had experienced before, one without a clear recovery timeframe and which left him barely able to move against Manchester United away in September. When he returned to action as a substitute against Leeds United in December, he was, he said, incapable of sprinting, shooting or kicking the ball long.

If the groin is still an issue and surgery proves the wisest course of action, he has his first clear block in his schedule for three summers to receive treatment, having played at the European Under-21 Championship in 2023, the European Championship in 2024 and the FIFA Club World Cup in 2025. He scored or assisted a goal in the final of all three tournaments.

“It’s very sad we’ve seen only a glimpse of Cole Palmer during this year,” Maheta Molango, chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA), said last month as part of broader comments criticising football’s schedule.

Palmer is far too good for this decline to persist, and his quality is only part of his strength.

He has all the hallmarks of the “mentality monster” that Chelsea’s incoming manager Xabi Alonso has signalled he wants in his team and has previously demonstrated that no stage or moment is too big for him. In recent years, no player has put two-time Champions League winners Paris Saint-Germain to the sword as ruthlessly and brilliantly as Palmer did in last summer’s 3-0 win in the Club World Cup final.

But Alonso and Chelsea also have big roles to play in reviving his form. Enzo Maresca’s slow, heavily choreographed possession play rarely seemed to suit Palmer. His comment about being “sick of getting the ball and going backwards and sideways” in last year’s UEFA Conference League final chimed with what many had seen with their own eyes, even if all parties subsequently played down the significance of his words.

Back then he did at least have team-mates he connected with. Palmer created 22 chances in the Premier League for Noni Madueke in 2024-25 and 11 for Nicolas Jackson. Both players departed the following summer and Chelsea’s attacking chemistry went with them. Joao Pedro is yet to meaningfully click with Palmer, despite being an unequivocal upgrade up front, and there are no discernible signs of deep understanding with Pedro Neto or Alejandro Garnacho.

Justin Setterfield/Getty Images

The central spaces in which Palmer likes to operate have also felt clogged at times, particularly when Marc Cucurella inverts from left-back. As a relevant aside, have Chelsea’s No 10 and Enzo Fernandez ever played their best football together for a significant stretch?

Chelsea’s summer transfer activity may simplify things. Fernandez and Cucurella could leave and Jackson could return, even if only as understudy to Joao Pedro. It is not yet clear whether Alonso will look to recreate the phenomenally successful system he used at Bayer Leverkusen or build this team differently. Still, freeing up Palmer to receive the ball in dangerous areas, as Florian Wirtz once did for the 2023-24 Bundesliga champions, will surely be high on his list of priorities.

Last summer, ahead of the Club World Cup final, Palmer and Ousmane Dembele recreated the famous “Lunch atop a Skyscraper” photo at the Rockefeller Center. The image established two of the world’s best footballers sitting high above not just New York, but the football world. Palmer went on to win the Club World Cup, while Dembele claimed the Ballon d’Or.

Dembele was then able to play just over 1,000 Ligue 1 minutes to conserve his legs for PSG’s successful defence of their Champions League title, and France’s tilt at the World Cup. Chelsea and Palmer had no such luxury, but a summer of enforced rest and recovery could be exactly what he needs to scale such heights again.

Liam Twomey Liam is a Staff Writer for The Athletic, covering Chelsea. He previously worked for Goal covering the Premier League before becoming the Chelsea correspondent for ESPN in 2015, witnessing the unravelling of Jose Mourinho, the rise and fall of Antonio Conte, the brilliance of Eden Hazard and the madness of Diego Costa. He has also contributed to The Independent and ITV Sport.