Eike Immel at the European Football Championship in 1988
Source: pa/press photo Rudel/Herbert Rudel
Former national goalkeeper Eike Immel has made a few mistakes in his life, so he made headlines with a personal bankruptcy. But he owes his biggest sporting error to his father-in-law.
Dhe former national goalkeeper Eike Immel described his early retirement from the national soccer team in 1988 as a “huge mistake”. “Two years later I would have become world champion – admittedly I didn’t expect that at all,” said the now 61-year-old on “t-online.de”: “But one way or another, whether as the first or second goalkeeper: I would be world champion become.”
It wasn’t until he saw Oliver Kahn at the 2006 World Cup, “taking his place on the bench behind Jens Lehmann without complaint, that I thought: Boy, he’s doing it right, you’re not,” recalled the 1992 German champion to VfB Stuttgart.
“I was not well advised,” says Eike Immel today
Those: pa / dpa / Uwe Zucchi
In the national team he played 19 international matches between 1980 and 1988. At the 1988 European Championships in Germany, he was the first-choice goalkeeper. After the tournament he injured his knee. The then Cologne Bodo Illgner became a regular in the DFB team.
“If you are second goalkeeper, you have to resign”
“I thought nobody was better than me – but I wasn’t well advised,” said Immel about his resignation. “My father-in-law said at the time: ‘If you’re second goalkeeper, you have to resign immediately. It’s an embarrassment for the whole family.'” Being “grey haired and a little wiser,” he knows it was a mistake.
Immel was considered a great goalkeeping talent early on. At the age of 17 he made his Bundesliga debut at Borussia Dortmund. At the age of 19 he was part of the national team squad. He ended his career with Manchester City in 1997 because of hip arthritis, he said. In 2008, Immel made headlines with a personal bankruptcy and his participation in the RTL “jungle camp”.
