Okay, so I’ve been digging into the 1974 World Cup, and let me tell you, it was a wild ride! I started by just typing “World Cup Winners 1974” into my search bar, nothing fancy. Boom! Tons of information popped up.
First thing I noticed was that West Germany hosted the whole thing. I mean, I had to find that out. It ran from June 13th to July 7th. Then I found out West Germany actually won the cup that year. They beat the Netherlands 2-1 in the final match. It all went down at the Olympiastadion in Munich. I had no idea it was their second win, the first one was in 1954!
I also found out that this was the first time they used the new trophy, the FIFA World Cup Trophy. It was created by some Italian guy, Silvio Gazzaniga. I even looked up the names of the players in the final match. For West Germany, there were guys like Harald Schumacher, Uli Stielike, and so on, I could list all of them but there are so many names. Also, I found some substitutes as well. There was Horst Hrubesch who replaced Magath at the 73rd minute of the final match.
But I didn’t stop there. I wanted to know who was on the winning team, you know? So I looked up the whole roster.
- Van Ierssel
- Cruyff
- Jongbloed
- Schrijvers
- Haan
- Rijsbergen
- Neeskens
- Isra�l
- Keizer
- Treytel
- Krol
- Suurbier
- Van Hanegem
- Jansen
- Rep
- Willy van de Kerkhof
- Ren� van de Kerkhof
- Geels
- Rensenbrink
- Strik
- Vos
- De Jong
Man, what a team! It was awesome to discover all these names, it felt like traveling back in time.
I spent hours just going through articles, and images. It was a blast from the past. I even found some old match footage. It is crazy to think that this was West Germany’s second time winning the World Cup. And beating the Netherlands in the final, what a game that must have been!
So yeah, that’s my little deep dive into the 1974 World Cup. It was a fun project, and I learned a ton. Hope you guys enjoyed my little trip down memory lane!
