What do you think of this fact?
An international match where 22 players turn down the call-up sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. But on September 12, 1990, East Germany’s national team won anyway: 2-0 against Belgium, in the very last match in its history.
A qualifier that no longer was one
The game in Brussels was originally supposed to be a qualifier for Euro 1992 in Sweden. But reunification came faster than expected. The East German football association withdrew its team from qualifying, and the competitive match turned into a friendly. Three weeks later, on October 3, East Germany no longer existed.
For coach Eduard “Ede” Geyer, putting a squad together became a real problem. According to Fussballdaten, 22 players turned him down, including Ulf Kirsten and Thomas Doll. Eurosport describes the mood like this: after the fall of the Wall, everyone was busy with their own lives. In the end, only 14 players travelled to Brussels.
Two goals from the man who wanted to leave
Of all people, Matthias Sammer, then playing for VfB Stuttgart, almost didn’t stay either. He later said he hadn’t really wanted to stay, but there were no more flights that evening. So he played, and he scored both goals in the 2-0 win at the Constant Vanden Stock Stadium.
According to the Berliner Kurier, Geyer fired up his team beforehand with the words “You can make history!” It worked: Sammer’s goals were the last ever scored by an East German national team.
With the win in Brussels, the East German national team finished with 138 wins in 293 international matches, according to Fussballdaten.
Sammer went on to play for the reunified German national team and won the European Championship in 1996, with a team that didn’t even exist in this form in 1990.
A farewell with a skeleton squad, but at least without a defeat.