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BAYERN FAMILY 2February 2025
102
Palace of Accra : When you enter the foyer of Kuffour ‘ s house , you immediately realise this man has come a long way .
That provides an opportune moment to ask a delicate question : Would Kuffour watch the 1999 Manchester United final defeat again , right now , right here , on his sofa , on his giant television ? We ’ ve brought a DVD along . ” No “, he says , he laments , ” no , no , no , I can ‘ t – it still hurts too much .” Kuffour slaps his lapel , where the club crest used to be , where his heart beats , and he almost crushes the flower in his buttonhole . He ‘ s been avoiding this game for over 25 years , he says . ” Maybe I ‘ ll watch it with my kids sometime .“ The three teenagers live in London , where they go to school and university . One of them is a Man United fan . ” He googles clips of the game on YouTube from time to time , and I always say , turn that off !“ says Kuffour .
Life is not always golden
Next to the sofa is a display case with Kuffour ‘ s greatest successes . The silver Champions League medal from 1999 is in there , next to the golden one from 2001 . He treats both with the same reverence . Football is like life , not always fair . That ‘ s part and parcel of it , he believes . ” We were the better team in 1999 , we were unlucky .“ No one shed more tears on the Camp Nou pitch after the final whistle than Kuffour , the only non-German player in the starting XI from Munich . Bayern fans will never forget that . Referee Pierluigi Collina came over to him , the injured Bixente Lizarazu rushed down from the stands , ” but I couldn ‘ t control myself “. United ‘ s wonder strikers Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole ” couldn ’ t get past me – and then the game was turned on its head “. Karin Potthoff
THIS IS FC BAYERN : YOU DON ‘ T GIVE UP . EVER . MIA SAN MIA
had a special shirt printed for him , which he ‘ d wanted to show off after the victory . ” Thank you , God ,“ it read . ” But I couldn ‘ t wear it .“ On the night of the defeat , Kuffour hid away in his room . No banquet , no party . Again and again people knocked on his door , saying he really should come out . ” I always said I ‘ d be right there , but I couldn ‘ t .“ Instead , he talked to his mama on the phone in Ghana . She cried . And with his daughter in Ghana . She cried too . When he landed in his home country two weeks later , he was welcomed at the airport by lots of fans . ” The whole of Africa was behind me in the final ,“ he remembers . He received letters from all over the continent . The message was always the same : ” Sammy , you ‘ ll come back from this !“ And sure enough , the 1999 ” mother of all
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