Soccer in Sun and Shadow

Goal by Rahn

It was at the World Cup in 1954. Hungary, the favorite, was playing West Germany in the final.

With six minutes left in a match tied 2–2, the robust German forward Helmut Rahn trapped a rebound from the Hungarian defense in the semicircle. Rahn evaded Lantos and fired a blast with his left, just inside the right post of the goal defended by Grosics.

Heribert Zimmerman, Germany’s most popular broadcaster, announced that goal with a passion worthy of a South American: “Toooooooooorrrrrrrrrr!!!”

It was the first World Cup Germany had been allowed to play since the war, and the German people felt they again had the right to exist. Zimmerman’s cry became a symbol of national resurrection. Years later, that historic goal could be heard on the soundtrack of Fassbinder’s film The Marriage of Maria Braun, which recounts the misadventures of a woman who cannot find her way out of the ruins.