It seemed a little late in the game when France’s World Cup winning side of 1998 was accused of doping just a couple months back. What then are we to say about calling the 1954 World Cup winning side a bunch of cheater, cheater, pumpkin eaters? Can they still hear well enough to understand the accusations?
A German university was commissioned by the German Olympic Committee to do a study on doping in, yes, Germany. The verdict? (West) Germans cheated.
After reading the headline I fully expected this to be conducted by a Hungarian university via a secret group called the Committee For Reclaiming Hungarian Football Glory By Accusing Germans Whilst Crying Tears In The Bathtub. Twasn’t.
Germans throwing those miraculous West Germans under the bus for their Das Wunder von Bern.
Despite highly-fancied Hungary taking a 2-0 lead after just eight minutes, underdogs Germany fought back at Berne’s Wankdorf Stadium with winger Helmut Rahn scoring twice, including hitting the 84th-minute winner.
The study, published on Monday, says the team, dubbed ‘the heroes of Bern’, believed they received vitamin C injections before the final, but were actually given methamphetamine, a substance given to German troops in World War II.
The study by Leipzig University, called ‘Doping in Germany’ and funded by the German Olympic Committee, is due to be published in 2012 and reveals doping was first used in high-level sport in West Germany as early as 1949.
The 1954 World Cup final was not simply just a World Cup final, if there could be such a thing. The Mighty Magyars of Hungary are still today considered to be the greatest team to have never won the World Cup; some might even cross the rest off after ‘team’. They were magnificent, and West Germany pulled the upset of most holy upsets.
And it would appear now that there’s a fairly decent reason why. Well, so we think. Surely there’s are good reasons, perhaps even good evidence, as to why a study would publish such an allegation, but it’s unlikely to cause enough of an uproar to do anything but shrug a few shoulders – accusations of cheating in the World Cup final are as much a part of the game as the ball itself.
Even if true and the invisible asterisk added next to their names in the record books, would they now, 56 years later, still say it was worth it? Probably.
Posts
