NOT MUCH WAS SAID in the German dressing room between the halves. What was there to say? The players were too weary to talk. They sat on the benches, heads bowed, panting, speechless. Only the baron moved from one to the other, praising a stop made, a pass executed, a kick here, a thrust there, warning someone about a single careless moment of play. The men listened to their captain. Otto Schoen was the man who spoke up. The veteran winger raised his head. He saw the lines in the goalkeeper’s face, recognized the tremendous responsibility that was on him. Rising, he put his arms around the baron.
“Hans, if you keep playing like this, we can beat that team.”
Time to resume play. They clattered across the wooden floor of the dressing room, down the long concrete corridor, and onto the field. Their appearance brought the German stands up. An ecstatic display of red-gold-and-black flags greeted them.
The second half began. The French pressure, sharp, incisive, continued. The baron’s goalkeeping was still amazing. He was a cross between an acrobat and an octopus. Unerringly he sized up each play coming toward him, guessed where the ball was going to go even before it was kicked. His arms, his big hands, his long fingers seemed to attract every shot to his grasp. Now a hard one was knocked over the crossbar, now a cannonball drive at his ankles was cleanly stopped and held. Often the kick was going away from him, but he reached and saved them all.
In that saturated bombardment of the German goal it looked so easy. But that was his trademark, making those stops look easy.
Why, you said to yourself, watching from the stands, I could have held that one. I could have stopped that kick, held that ball. You forgot, unless you knew the game, his experience and that knack of anticipating each play. Above all you ignored his amazing reflexes, which contributed so much to his skill and to keeping Germany even with France as the second half moved along without a score.
Equally steady on the high ones just under the crossbar, the short, quick stabs from in close, or those long, hard kicks beyond the penalty box, he contained them all. The ball would come at him out of a melee of arms, legs, and feet, so hard it stung his hands. But he held it. Gradually the sportswriters, the television commentators in the makeshift press box, their field glasses to their eyes, began to realize the German goalie was extracting the poison from the French attack.
Still the waves of attackers in red jerseys bore down on the baron. Each time he held them off, cleared the goal, saved Germany. Each time the dagger of France was blunted. Once Robert Laffont, the French inside left, made a superb thrust. From a mix-up in the penalty box he cleared a kick low, hard to the corner. The French stands went wild for it seemed a sure score. Somehow the baron got across, stopped the balloon with outstretched hands, an impossible stab. It got away from him and dribbled along the ground. Two French players were on the ball but he reached it first, quick as only the great player can be. Diving for it, he rolled over and over on the turf, the ball cradled in his stomach. Both sides cheered his great preventive football.
To make such a save is the mark of genius. A little while before the French were calling him a butcher. Now they applauded along with the exultant Germans. The French are like the rest of us. They wanted terribly to win that match. But, like the rest of us, they were not insensitive to talent when they saw it. What they were watching was football genius, and every French spectator knew it.
After a corner kick for France from which nothing resulted, Germany now moved to the attack alertly. France fell back, regrouped, ready, anxiously watching. For a moment the baron stood panting, weary, one arm outstretched against a goalpost. However, the swing of fortune was shortlived, the respite soon over. Following some infighting around the French goal, Varin stole the ball and was off, moving with those long, effortless strides across midfield and into enemy territory.
There it was, that quick, accurate flick to Bonnet, the burst of speed into open country ahead for the return. The young centre forward took a cross back, and the moment he stopped the ball made a sudden, unexpected flip to Carpentier, the inside right, just behind him. Again that roar rose: “France... France... France....” Once more they threatened.
Carpentier charged in. Before the goal, Borkowski of Germany, one of the stoppers of the Munich defense, a great oak of a man, made a slashing slide tackle which jarred the ball loose. But in the full momentum of his drive the Frenchman was a truck with the brakes gone. What happened was partly, perhaps, resentment over the blow to Varin, but mostly explosive exasperation at the so-near-and-yet-so-far game that France had played all afternoon. Carpentier leaped into the air and collided with the baron.
When the French go in they go in hard. Away flew the gray cap the baron wore. He fell to the ground as the referee raced over, blowing his whistle and pointing to Carpentier.
First a hush. Then a half moan swept the German stands as they stared at their man stretched out on the ground. Without that goalie Germany would be helpless. Everyone knew it.
Each spectator seemed to have felt the shock of that collision. Along the German side of the stadium they watched anxiously. The unvoiced thought hung in the air: if he is finished, we’re finished. We’re through if the baron has to leave the game. Every eye focused upon the knot of men around the figure at the goal line. The baron writhed on the turf as the trainer bent over him. He twisted and turned. His knees came up slowly. You could see the agony on his face.
The men watched him solicitously. After a while they helped him up. He leaned over, straightened his body, staggered a little, shaken from his second blow of the afternoon. Cheers came from all over the stadium. He walked around unaided. The whole crowd burst into applause.
Once or twice he half stumbled as he took his place, jogging back and forth along the goal line. Then he washed his neck and face with cold water, toweled himself, picked up his cap, and went back into the goal. The German banners waved triumphantly.
This time the ball went to the far end with Germany getting a free kick. Otto Schoen stood ready. A free kick from close up is dangerous for the defense. Will it be a soft, lofted ball or a hard, swift kick? He kicked. The ball just cleared the crossbar above the goal. No score. A tremendous roar of joy exploded from French throats, an enormous groan from the German spectators.
Aching all over, holding on to one goalpost, the baron watched a play developing at the far end. He saw no crowd, heard nothing, felt nothing but the danger ahead. Every instant his eyes under the old gray cap were fixed on that white balloon moving toward him in a kind of inexorable pattern.
France was coming on the attack with Varin upon the ball. For a second he lost it in a welter of legs and feet at midfield. Then once again that graceful, moving athlete came up with the ball.
“Look out, Sepp! Watch that winger, Horst! Watch him! Watch him, man, WATCH HIM....”
Now it’s over to Varin... to Bonnet... stop him, Fritz, stop him... back to Varin... a cross to Garnier almost intercepted... no! Back to Varin, who is breaking through....
The kick was low, hard, into the far corner of the goal. The baron jumped for it with all his great strength, his body parallel to the ground, touched the ball, missed it, and lay prone on the turf.
Pandemonium! Horns. Cheers. Red-white-and-blue flags aflame in the sunshine. Cheers. Shouts. Yells. France! France! France!
Jean-Paul turned and raced away, both arms high in the air. Skip-skip, leap-leap. He somersaulted on the grass in joy; as he came back he was surrounded by several teammates who hugged and kissed him. Others rushed up to embrace him. It was all his. After the shots missed, the kicks blocked, after those endless and hopeless assaults it was his own, his first goal in his first international match for France.
Can happiness be greater?
All the while the big German goalie lay flat on his stomach, pounding the turf in anguish with his bruised fists and knuckles. Helmut Herberger, the winger, young in years yet somehow old with insight and understanding, recognized the agony inside his captain. He raced over, knelt beside him, bent over and caressed the man’s shoulders.
Finally the baron rose. The whistle of the referee sounded. Germany kicked off, a little push to the right. The game was practically over now, for only three minutes remained. The stadium was a cockpit of noise, nerves, passion. The thousands in the stands lived and died a hundred deaths. The delirious French shouted and screamed with joy. They even joined in as the baron coolly repulsed another thrust.
“Ah, let’s admit it. He is a brave type, strong, stubborn. Un maître, a master. Un vrai champion.”
But up in the press box the old hands all said, “Watch out, France. The game isn’t finished. Be careful. Any team that scores first and camps on a one-goal lead may find itself in trouble if it merely tries to defend.”