Paul Breitner: The free thinker

Paul Breitner says he wouldn’t exist in today’s world – he’d be just like everyone else. To mark his 75th birthday, the FC Bayern members’ magazine '51' spoke to him about his career, the chronicles he's written for his great-grandchildren, and the most important word of his life.

Interview with Paul Breitner

Revolutionary, rebel, maverick – Herr Breitner, you’ve been labelled many things in your life. Which one do you not recognise at all?
"I’ve never liked the term ‘maverick’. Someone who thinks differently because they believe that’s the right thing for them to do isn’t a maverick. They’re an individualist; they have a stance. I wanted to shape my life differently to how those around me had done. I’ve always said: ‘To each their own – but I’ll do it my way.’"

When did that start?
"I convinced myself that I had grown up very early. So I tried, as far as I could, to make my own decisions. I’d leave the house at six in the morning, cycle six kilometres to the station, come rain or shine, and be back home by half past one in the afternoon. Both my parents worked, and I had a list of everything I was supposed to do. Shopping, a bit of vacuuming. And that’s what I did.”

So you took on responsibility at an early age.
”When we were in Year 7 at Traunstein Grammar School, we received a letter about a parents’ evening. We were sitting down to dinner one evening, and I said to my parents, ‘By the way, here’s a letter for you.’ My father looked at my mother: ‘How shall we handle this? Who’s going to go?’ Then I said, ‘Stop. No one’s going. I’m on my own here every afternoon – and I’m managing just fine. You can trust me.’”

How did your parents react?
"They were somewhat taken aback by how blunt I was. By the fact that I said: ‘Not you any more – I’ll make my own decisions.'’’

That applied to football as well. You used to train on your own even as a teenager. Did you enjoy that?
"No, I’m not much of a fun guy. I can have a laugh when someone tells a joke. But apart from that, joy is what matters most to me. I used to train on my own four times a week; team training was only on Wednesdays. I'd spend Tuesdays kicking a ball against the wall in a gym – it was my perfect partner. The wall doesn’t forgive any mistakes. The way you hit the ball against the wall is exactly how it comes back.”

And what did the others have to say about it?
"I didn’t care about that even back then."

In 1970, you joined FC Bayern, who had a dressing room packed with strong characters: Beckenbauer, Maier, coach Udo Lattek and general manager Robert Schwan. How did you fit in there?
“I only ever had problems if I found someone to be stupid. If someone wanted me to do something that didn’t make sense to me, I’d ask: ‘Why should I do that?’ And if you do that four or five times, the people you’re dealing with then realise they can’t get away with just any old rubbish with you – then they think twice.”

Where did you get that from?
“I was mainly brought up by my aunt and uncle; my father was a commuter, and my mother worked shifts at the Kolbermoor spinning mill. My aunt had been a nurse for years during the war – a really strong, warm-hearted woman who made sure anyone I brought home would be given the same to eat – even if it was just a slice of bread and butter, because that was all there was. She always used to say: ‘Paule, don’t put up with anything. Ask questions. And then make up your mind.’ She’s the one who made me the person I’ve become.”

Is there a particular incident from your early days at Bayern that illustrates this?
”We were constantly on the road back then. At one point, one of the older lads said to me: ‘Listen, Schwan will soon show you that he’s the one in charge here.’ Robert Schwan was otherwise a decent bloke; he had a vision of how to take the club forward. But he was just used to treating the younger lads with condescension and making it clear that he was the boss. We were in Nice for a match, and early one morning the phone rang in my room. I picked up the receiver, and Schwan said in a commanding tone: ‘Paul, get up! Get out there now and sort out the dirty training kit and the boots!’ Then I switched on the light – it was 6:15 am. I screamed at him through the receiver, telling him exactly what I thought of him at that moment, and that he’d better sort out that mess himself and let us players sleep. And if it happened again, he’d get a taste of what I was made of. Then I hung up.”

No fallout?
“Yes, but a long time later. In 1977, at Wilhelm Neudecker’s birthday party – we hadn’t seen each other for two years, as I’d been in Madrid. We bumped into each other at the ‘Käfer’, and I stopped in my tracks. I thought to myself: Now I’m curious. He came up to me, hugged me and said: ‘Paul, I’m absolutely delighted to see you again. And above all: you’re one of the very few people I’ve ever had respect for. I knew: he’s going to go places. And Paul, from now on, you can call me Robert.’“

At that time, you hadn’t played for the national team for six years. Was that a matter of principle – or defiance?
“I wasn’t a defiant child, but a child who always made it clear: not with me. And that whole silly story about us having announced our retirement because of the drama with our wives at the World Cup banquet – that was fabricated. The real reason came later. When I was in Madrid, Günter Netzer and I made two more international appearances in the spring of 1975. After that, we said: ‘This doesn’t make sense any more.’ We played for Real on the Sunday and only joined the national team on the Monday to play in an international on the Wednesday. But by then, having been in Madrid, we’d developed a completely different idea of how football works. We said: ‘We’re not doing this team any favours; we’re throwing ourselves and everyone else into disarray because it’s half-baked. So we’re stepping down.’”

In 1998, you almost became the national coach but lost out because of a single sentence in an interview. Have you ever thought: ‘If only I’d taken that back’?
“For me, there’s no ‘would have’, ‘could have’ or ‘should have’. I was live on the TV, on Sat.1 that evening when Berti Vogts resigned in Malta. And I said: ‘This is a huge opportunity for the DFB to make a fresh start, to break with the past, to move away from all that “Hip-hip-hooray” and “You must be 11 friends”. And that Franz Beckenbauer must join the executive committee immediately, because German football is in such a bad state that we need someone to restore its image.’ I didn’t get any more specific than that. That very evening, DFB president Egidius Braun rang me at home – we had a good relationship – and tried to talk me into doing it. I said: ‘Herr Braun, that’s a terrific idea, but you won’t be able to force it through – too many people on the executive committee and the board are against me.’ He wanted to unveil me the next day. ‘You’re going to have to ring me tomorrow,’ I predicted, ‘and say: It’s not going to happen.’ He did ring at midday, saying he was terribly sorry, but it really wasn’t going to happen.”

You really would have taken the job?
“In a heartbeat. For nine months, a year, with no contract. He’d said himself that he needed a bankruptcy administrator for German football. It wouldn’t have been a life’s work. I would have done what they need again today: a completely new approach to the education and training of our children and young people.”

What’s going wrong there?
“After 1974, we suddenly started training three times a day in the Bundesliga. There were coaches in the Ruhr region who made their team run around a coal mine at six in the morning to show: ‘We footballers work too.’ Apparently, a few of them said: ‘We’ve got enough stamina for 90 minutes – if we had stamina for three hours, then nobody could touch us.’ For me, that was when the decline in the quality of German football began. And we’ve now been in a similar situation for the past eight years. We’ve once again allowed ourselves to be trained to be rigid task-fulfillers on the pitch. You do this, you do that, you do the other. Without any freedom.”

How can you tell?
“Here’s an example: out in a neighbouring village, an U8 or U9 team are playing. It’s drizzling, perhaps 14 degrees. First, there’s a hydration break after ten minutes, because the pros sometimes have them too. And then on the small pitch, it’s all about: pass it on, pass it on, pass it on. The player on the left isn’t allowed to dribble the moment someone comes up to him, but has to pass into the centre. And if someone tackles the player in the centre, he passes it back to the goalkeeper. Just like we see in the Bundesliga. That’s the problem: that the little ones are once again being trained to copy the big ones too much. Good grief, they should be allowed to develop just as they would outside of football – in line with their talent and their physical capabilities.”

This criticism has been levelled before.
“When I was 12, I played in the final of the Upper Bavaria Schools Cup with ESV Freilassing. We beat FC Bayern 3–1; I scored all three goals. After the match, the Bayern officials went up to my father and tried to persuade him that I should go to Munich – the whole family should – and he would be offered a new job there. Then my father said: ‘What would he do with you lot? Become just another run-of-the-mill footballer like the ones you already have, who all do the same thing?’”

It would be so easy to say: the players have all conformed; we need characters with real grit again.
“Above all, it’s wrong. Because we footballers are merely a reflection of our society. It’s the times we live in: the desire for security and the fear of falling from grace are greater than ever before. Nowadays, I’d be just like everyone else, of course. On the pitch, certainly, because every coach tells you exactly which pass to make. But also in what I do and what I say. I’d constantly be aware that there’s someone behind every tree with a mobile phone camera. The players we have today have grown up with that.”

You were one of the first to say openly: ‘I play for the money too.’ Today, players are moving to Saudi Arabia for hundreds of millions. Where does freedom end and selling out begin?
“That’s putting the cart before the horse. The player isn’t asking for anything ridiculous – he’s asking for what the market will tolerate. No one asks what a George Clooney or a Lady Gaga earns compared to their predecessors. And we footballers are the best entertainers in the world. Whether you go to Africa or South America: it’s church, work, football. In Europe, football is at the heart of every society – and now on the Arabian Peninsula too. And there, it’s not about selling yourself, it’s about buying. Just as Qatar and Saudi Arabia bought their way into hosting the World Cup, so they’re buying big names. You’re at an age where you’d normally call it a day; you no longer have any sporting goals that you need to demonstrate as a pretext. With Ronaldo, you’ve seen that the sums involved simply don’t add up to what he’s still delivering today. He puts on the odd show – that’s all it is. I took a different approach and called it a day at 31. I could easily have played for another four or five years, and hardly any spectator would have noticed that in the first year I was only performing at 90 per cent, then 85. But the spectator pays for me to be performing at 100 per cent. Being a partner to the spectator – that was my top priority.”

On the pitch and as a pundit, the maverick; with the Maltese charity organisation and at the food bank, treating people as equals. Is that a contradiction – or do both stem from the same root?
“From the same root. From the fact that I experienced post-war poverty in Kolbermoor back in the 1950s. I’m not one of those people who do things to give something back. I can’t stand that sort of talk, because there’s nothing I need to give back – I’ve built everything myself. But I do give what I have more of than others: time. That’s the most important thing that anyone who is socially committed gives. And then, if they’re capable of it, empathy. Having a sense of the individual’s situation.”

You’re turning 75 now. All your life you’ve been at odds with people – with club officials, with the media, with expectations. What does a person find themselves at odds with when there’s no longer any resistance? After all, you no longer have to prove anything to anyone.
“Not for a long time now. And I’ve also taken the liberty of living out what I always tell others. The most important word in my life was: No. You don’t steer your life by always saying ‘yes’. In crucial situations, you have to be honest – so honest with yourself that it sometimes hurts. If I hadn’t been able to do that, we wouldn’t be sitting here now. I know I wasn’t always easy to get on with when I convinced myself that a certain toughness was called for.”

You’ve questioned almost everything. But there’s one decision you’ve never questioned: you’ve been married to your wife for over 55 years.
“Quite simply because 60 years ago, two kindred spirits met. And because she lives the life that I live. There are moments of such happiness. My father used to say: ‘When you turn ten, I won’t commute any more; I’ll bring you both to live with me in Freilassing, and you’ll go to the humanistic grammar school in Traunstein – there you’ll learn Latin, and with Latin you can become anything.’ Years later, I kept saying to him: ‘Right, Dad, with Latin you can become anything – even a stupid footballer.’ But I still love Latin to this day; I love Ancient Greek. I’ve travelled down a few of life’s motorways in my time. The one from Kolbermoor to Freilassing was the widest. It led me to my wife.”

You’ve chronicled your memories for your family. How does it make you feel to look back on your own life from every angle for so long?
“I felt a need to pass on my life story to my children, my grandchildren, and eventually my great-grandchildren. This stemmed from a family experience: my wife’s father was born in 1902 and was a traditional folk actor and musician. In the 1970s, he would often tell our daughters stories, and we found this so lovely that we eventually bought a tape recorder with a microphone, and he recorded everything on tape. At some point, my wife said: ‘Why don’t you write some stories too? You tell your stories here, you tell them there – why don’t you tell the ones that just concern the family?’ I started at the end of the 1990s. A few pages; then nothing for a year or two. I spent years travelling the world for FC Bayern – I had plenty of time for it on the plane. It’s taken two and a half decades. But that means there are all the more layers to it.”

Are you at peace with the man who plays the leading role there?
“I’m at peace with myself, yes. And here’s why: if at any point I hadn’t been at peace with myself, I would have changed it straight away. I’m stubborn and consistent in that respect. I can’t stand lying to myself. I can fool myself a bit now and then – but not when it comes to the really important things.”

Interview taken from FC Bayern members’ magazine ‘51’