Stefan Kuntz has good reason to look forward to another semi-final against England. A day short of 21 years since he scored the equaliser and then converted the fifth penalty for Berti Vogts’s side in the Euro 96 shootout, the former striker will lead Germany into the European Under-21 Championship showdown with Aidy Boothroyd’s team on Tuesday night.
Perhaps understandably, Kuntz became something of a folk hero in England and in his homeland after his exploits at Wembley, with the reprisal of David Baddiel and Frank Skinner’s tournament anthem Three Lions before the World Cup two years later featuring the two comedians playing against a team of Germans all wearing shirts bearing his name.
“My mum asked me: ‘Why?’ I think it was one of the only situations that I lied to her,” he remembered after Germany’s 1-0 defeat by Italy on Saturday which set up the last-four showdown in Tychy. “Of course, I couldn’t tell her that Kuntz in German is ‘Kuntz’ but what it means in English! So I said: ‘Hey Mum, that’s because I scored the goal, I think!’ So don’t tell my Mum, please.”
The song was also adopted by the Germans after they returned home with the European Championship trophy in 1996, so much so that it was re-released in 2014 after their World Cup triumph in Brazil. More than two decades on from the infamous night when Gareth Southgate – Boothroyd’s predecessor in charge of the under-21s – missed the crucial spot-kick, the likable Kuntz is hoping for a special reunion with the manager of England’s senior side.
“I want to hug him because I think we shared the experience together,” he said. “Sometimes we win and sometimes they win. The most amazing memory in my head from that is my thought that England could not score penalties. I said to my coach: ‘I will take the fifth one,’ thinking that the English would never score all five penalties. I was wrong. Then I had to take the fifth one and you know where my heart was? Very deep in my pants. Of course it was the biggest victory for me.
“But the most impressive thing was that when we left the pitch the English supporters gave us a standing ovation. I had goose pimples. I’ve never felt this from opposition supporters. It was amazing. This was fair play at its best.”
Even though many of his squad were not even born then, Kuntz does not intend to show them any videos of that semi-final. Instead, he will be concentrating on getting past opponents who have grown into this tournament with successive victories against Slovakia and hosts Poland without a large contingent of Germany’s best young players. Joachim Löw’s Confederations Cup squad contains seven members who would have been eligible to play in this tournament, and Kuntz has been unable to call on the Bayer Leverkusen defender Jonathan Tah after he withdrew with injury before their first match.
A 2-0 friendly victory against England in March should provide Germany with some confidence they can reach the final on Friday despite a lacklustre performance against Italy and Kuntz is aware that should it end up going to penalties once more, his team could have the edge despite the presence of a team psychologist in England’s camp this time.
“At Euro 96 I think we were very experienced players and maybe if you read every day that you cannot score penalties sometimes maybe you believe that a little bit,” the 54-year-old said. “But maybe we will lose some day? I don’t know.
“It’s very funny. Some of my players are asking me now because I think somebody told them. There are many parallels – the first game we played against Czech Republic and the third against Italy and now a semi-final against England. Of course, I have to tell them because they don’t remember.”