Lothar Matthaus was West Germany’s designated penalty-taker at Italia ’90. When Franz Beckenbauer’s side were awarded their first of the finals, the midfielder slammed it past Jan Stejskal emphatically to earn victory over Czechoslovakia in the quarter-finals.
When they were awarded their second, in the final, everyone assumed Matthaus would step up again. There was, however, a problem. Matthaus had cracked the sole in one of his boots in the first half and had been wearing borrowed ones in the second.
“I just didn’t feel right in them,” explained Matthaus. “There’s no law saying one individual has to take the penalties, and we had some outstanding penalty-takers in our team. [Pierre] Littbarski could have taken it, but I fancied Andi Brehme to do it. I’d shared a room with him during the World Cup and we’d talked a lot about certain things, just the two of us. And I just knew he should be the one to take the penalty.”
So Brehme, who had had missed the only penalty he had taken in normal time at international level, bravely trotted up to face a fear-striking penalty specialist. Sergio Goycochea had, after all, saved two penalties apiece in Argentina’s shootout victories in the quarter- and semi-finals.
That didn’t intimidate the left-back. Brehme, who had netted a penalty with his left foot in the shootout victory over Mexico in the 1986 quarter-finals, clinically found the bottom corner with his right. The 85th-minute goal won West Germany the trophy.
