Auf Wiedersehen, Gerd.

Olympic Stadium, Munich. 7 July 1974. ITV’s Hugh Johns:

“Oh, that's the way that little man gets them! That’s the way he gets it"

Hundreds of them he got.  Literally hundreds.

And he got them every way. Every way imaginable.

Stealing it off Schwarzenbeck's toes for his second in the Euro 72 final.

Slashing it into the top corner from a ridiculous angle plus the most outlandish lob you've ever seen, the night Bayern first became Champions of Europe.

The control, turn and daisy-cutter into the bottom corner at Wembley in the Euros quarter-final (That celebration! A rhapsody of joy in long-sleeved green).

The ghosting run to the front post versus Leeds in Paris, 1975.

The poach, pen and header versus Bulgaria at Mexico 1970 then the perfect hat-trick - right, left, header - versus Peru... in the next game. The next bloody game. Straight hat-tricks in a World Cup finals.

What does he do for his first in extra-time versus Italy in the semi? Does anyone know? I still don’t and it’s still my favourite.

It's Being There, timing, harassment, fortitude, technique, spatial awareness - penalty box scoring boiled down to its very essence. That it looks like a clumsy car crash when it's actually the most genius, minimalist touch ever imparted on a football; that he has found the way to unravel the defence which outlawed scoring the previous decade: that the touch of the toe of his boot – a boot made by the company owned by the man who put the studs in the soles of his hero Max Morlock to help him score to help win the 1954 World Cup final in rain-soaked Europe - locates, in sun-drenched Central America, the millimetre click of not the housing, not the chamber, not the cylinder but the very pin required to open the lock that cracks Catenaccio, makes it the apogee of poaching.

The man wearing Morlock's 13 in the Azteca Stadium, one month before my first birthday, is the Master Key.

Half the global army of Gerdy zealots didn't see him play yet we ranted and ranted until he eventually began appearing in more “All-Time World” XIs (Exactly How many international tournaments did Cruyff, Eusebio and Di Stefano win??).

The spectacular slide-and-slash onto Uli Hoeness' electric run versus Yugoslavia in the Rheinstadion.

The miscontrol that isn't a miscontrol on 7th July 1974...

... The twist that is actually a contortion Cronenberg would deem too grizzly for the big screen ...

... the entire Dutch defence, and most of the watching globe, sent the wrong way as Gerdy wins the World Cup with the 68th goal of his 62nd international...

... his last international because the DFB wouldn't let the players' wives into the post-match party.

He stopped at 28. Which, like the fact there were so few internationals played in his day, is just as well for Ronaldo, was acknowledged by Miro Klose when he took his Germany total and was respectfully complimented by Messi, sending him a framed, signed jersey when he took Gerd's record for goals in a calendar year.

It was like Jimmy the Gent paying Paulie his tribute after the Lufthansa Heist. When you beat a Mueller record you know you're a legend. Or you check your stats.

He split with his wife because he moved her and their daughter to the States and couldn't settle in, wasn’t comfortable speaking English, and took to drink - all while scoring in the NASL. Always a scorer – always a painfully humble man.

Grew up, without a father, playing on bomb sites. Grew out on his mother's potato salad.

Had to borrow boots for his first trial. Had to listen to his first Bayern coach call him a bear among racehorses - and the Little Fat Miller.

And I bet that when he won three straight European Cups, the Cup-Winners Cup, a World Cup, the Euros and the Ballon d'Or, Gerdy still wished he was as good as Max Morlock.

I met him but I'd never seen him play. He was retired long before I heard about him. But I read about him. I learned that poaching, the only thing I'd ever been good at on a football pitch, the thing that got me a fair few slaggings as a kid, from peers, wasn't just permissable - it was necessary.

 It wasn't just about the stats, his totals exciting some geek to memorise some data. It was his example, his life-story, inspiring some Ayrshire gonk to actually go out and find a way to make my one limited skill worthy of a place in a football team despite my total lack of athleticism or ball control.

He won everything - and it probably wasn't enough. I twice finished top scorer for a team that finished bottom of its Sunday League - and it means the world to me. And it’s thanks to him.

The man who took the most explosive move of the Euro 72 final  - Beckenbauer surging forward, Netzer off the bar, Heynckes' vicious swerving volley parried by the Soviets - and turned it into one of the most spectacular goals of all time, by putting the thing in the bloody net.

Ronaldo demands unconditional worship and Messi wants our condolences because he's living a life of luxury in Paris. The greatest Gerd Mueller legacy isn't that he won more World Cups than those two combined but that he inspired by eschewing the limelight. He genuinely just wanted to score lots of goals, have a beer with his mates, some potato salad with his mum and a dance with his wife.

Rest easy, Gerdy. Rest easy, my hero. And, for the first time since November 1945, the defenders and goalkeepers of the world can rest easy too.