Julian Gressel and Kevin Scratch win with Atlanta United in the USA, the title and write a small piece of football history. You walk in the footsteps of Franz Beckenbauer.
Black-and-Red-and-Gold debut in the Major League Soccer (MLS): The two German professional football player Julian Gressel and Kevin Kratz won with Atlanta United the championship title in the North American professional League. You are now the first German, that have managed to do. Atlanta was in the final 2:0 (1:0) against Portland Timbers and won already in the second year of existence for the first time the MLS Cup. For the city of Atlanta, it was the first major title in the Sport since the baseball team of the Atlanta Braves in 1995, won the World Series.
The gates in front of the MLS-record crowd of 73.019 spectators at the Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta achieved a record of striker Josef Martinez (39.) and Franco Escobar (54.). “This is for the city, for the Fans. It was an extraordinary mood. It is unbelievable,” said Gressel, and then added: “I’ve become in the last two years, a better Person and a much better player. When I look back later in time, were perhaps the two most important years of my football career.”
In Beckenbauer’s Footsteps
The 24-year-old Gressel played against Portland in 90 minutes, the 31-year-old Scratch was sitting, however, the entire duration of the game over on the Bank. Gressel was the first German who came to an MLS championship final. The successor to the American Soccer League (NASL), the Franz Beckenbauer New York Cosmos three times (1977, 1978, 1980) could win, was held in 1994 for the first time.
As the first German in 1981, striker Karl-Heinz Granitza, goalkeeper Dieter Ferner, Ingo Peter, Paul Hahn, and Arno Steffenhagen with Chicaco Sting won the Soccer Bowl, the NASL. 1984 Granitza, the Second was the all-time top scorers list of the NASL behind Giorgio China glia, the re-title.
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