MUNICH: Karl Heinz Riedle is a household name for Borussia Dortmund followers. Having guided Dortmund to two back-to-back league titles in 1995 and 1996 and helped them win the Champions League in 1997, he served Bundesliga as one of its shining stars in the 1990s.
However, it was his move to Lazio which took him closer to meeting two of "the craziest talents" in world football and even after three decades, he is still in awe of them. First, as an opponent, he was witness to the Diego Maradona mania which engulfed Napoli and Italy. Then arrived on Riedle's football horizon as a Lazio teammate, one Englishman who answered to the name of Paul Gascoigne.
"It was fantastic to watch Napoli at that time. Maradona was exceptional, certainly the best player to play football on this planet. It was great watching him play as an opponent. Unfortunately, he didn't make his private life later on what he did as a player. But on the pitch, he was certainly the best," Riedle, now 54, told TOI in an exclusive interview here on Saturday.
"Maradona's skills were so out of the world that as a player you would always like to imitate and achieve. But even if you train 400 hours in a week, you won't be able to get there," said Riedle, a World Cup and Euro winner too. The striker, who had an amazing ability to score goals with perfect headers and earned the sobriquet of "Air Riedle", a ka Air Jordan, didn't play in the 1990 World Cup final against Maradona's Argentina, but he still has some sympathy for his Napoli rival.
"It was great to be part of a World Cup winning team, truly a dream come true moment for me. But I also felt for Argentina. They conceded a late penalty and had VAR been there, it could have been a different decision. Maradona was in tears and, to be honest, I suffered for him after the match," Riedle, who now runs his own hospitality business and serves Dortmund as its ambassador, reminisced.
He also remembers his team with Gascoigne at Lazio. "Gazza was a crazy player. I can't say many things about him in public. When you are in a room with him, he was a very nice guy. But as soon as the spotlight fell on him, he became an actor. He needed his stage because he always wanted to be a show-stopper," Riedle said of his former Lazio teammate. "Gazza wasn't a guy who trained a lot. He was a god-gifted talent and wonderful to watch on the pitch," he added.
Riedle, who was preparing to head to the Allianz Arena for afternoon's Der Klassiker, admitted that Dortmund are going through a transition and struggling to replicate the success, they achieved under Juergen Klopp. "We came close to winning the league on a few occasions but we fell short of achieving the goal. It's very difficult to beat Bayern Munich in Germany. And about Klopp, it's in a lifetime to get a coach like him. We have got a good coach (Marco Rose) and hopefully things would be different soon," he said.
(TOI is in Munich on invitation from Sony Sports Network and Bundesliga International)
