Dieter Müller


Dieter Müller is a German former footballer who played as a forward. He achieved his greatest success playing for 1. FC Köln in the Bundesliga in the late 1970s. He scored 177 goals in 303 games in the German league, including 6 goals in one game in August 1977, a record that still stands. He also played 12 times for West Germany from 1976 to 1978, scoring 9 goals.

Career

Müller played and scored in the UEFA Euro 1976 final, which West Germany lost on penalties to Czechoslovakia. He was again in the national team in the 1978 FIFA World Cup, though the campaign ended in disappointment when West Germany, the defending champions, did not qualify for the tournament's final. In his spell with 1. FC Köln he set a record for the most goals scored by a player in a single Bundesliga match. On 17 August 1977, he tallied six goals in Köln's 7–2 victory over Werder Bremen in front of a crowd of 19,000 at Köln's Müngersdorfer Stadion. However, since television cameramen were on strike on that day, there are no known film of Müller's goals. He was crowned Bundesliga topscorer that season, as he had the season before.
After he left Köln, he played for several seasons in France and Switzerland, before returning to West Germany.
Müller is the son of Heinz Kaster, who played as a defender for FC St. Pauli and Kickers Offenbach in the early 1950s. The striker had already been a schoolboy international, when his stepfather's adoption turned his surname into Müller.

Career statistics

Club

Personal life

He was struck by a family tragedy. His son Alexander, aged 16, died of a brain tumor in 1997.
Müller suffered a severe heart attack on 5 October 2012 and fell into a five-day coma.