Günter Netzer - commentator for German TV

If you've been watching terrestrial German TV at all during the World Cup then you'll have no doubt seen this guy: Günther Netzer.

Netzer, born 1944 in Mönchengladbach, is a former German football player. He used to play for Borussia Mönchengladbach before moving to Real Madrid. He also played for the West Germany national team 37 times from 1965 to 1975, including a 21 minute appearance at the 1974 World Cup.

After retiring as a player Netzer spent eight years managing the Hamburger SV team. He now works as a reporter and TV pundit. On the German TV channel ARD he co-hosts with Gerhard Delling, commenting on games of the German national team. Despite their frequent arguments on TV, which they have developed into a kind of iconic stunt, Netzer and Delling are supposedly close friends - Netzer was Delling's Best Man at his wedding in May 2003.

Read more: Günter Netzer - Wikipedia

I really enjoy the Delling/Netzer double-act.
They quite often make me laugh. You can tell they're good mates.

This guy always reminds me of Guy Siner, who played German Lieutenant Hubert Gruber, assistant to General Von Klinkerhoffen in 'Allo 'Allo. Always makes me smile.

He's also one of the names behind a rather nice little bar in Glockenbach called Netzer & Overath.

Friendly bar staff and beers knocking in at €2.60 is tough to beat.

Netzer & Overath
Baaderstr 33
80469 München
Telephone: 089 24205717

Wolfgang Overath, born in '43, played three times for Germany in World Cup finals.


Wiki

to be honest, my german isn't good enough to inderstand their jokes, (i've only been here four months) but i am always laughing at them. and their swooshy tv is pretty cool too.

Netzer is an extremely annoying cnut. A German Mark Lawrenson.

As excutive director of Infront, Netzer's company also owns all media rights to the 2006 Football World Cup, as well as media rights for other sports and marketing rights.
To say that the gent has done well for himself is putting it mildly.

Despite having access to a plethora of English channels I have prefered German commentary over the innane Motsy, Lawrensen, Atkinson claptrap every time. Old school commentary.

Well BBC's World Cup blog reckons he looks like Jackie Stewart!

Netzer and the TV channel, ARD´s coverage of the WM does not even come anywhere close to Johannes B. Kerner and ZDF.

Kerner is a delight, and Jürgen Klopp with his ever-reliable tactical TV shots rocks. If it were not for him, we would not even have known what Roberto Carlos was upto while Henry scored France into the semis! And yes, I loved Pele´s debut song on ZDF and the Kaiser´s inputs every now and then. ZDF´s comedy show is with the "nationalhymne of die aller welt im Deutsch" is amazingly funny.

If you switch on ARD, their post-match analysis always sounds dull. Not to forget, Delling with surgical gloves on during the quarterfinals, and Netzer with his yawning inputs! What was Delling upto?

I don't like the way most the channels have loads of fans in the background getting over-excited. You can hardly hear the commentators talking, and you can barely see them behind their enormous microphones. Give me "boring" any day of the week!

I just want commentary where they at least get the facts right. The after match analysis on German TV isn't bad but the match commentary is so bad I'd rather watch it without sound.

The number of mistakes made per game usually averages around 5 that I managed to notice. English match commentary can often be fairly inane but at least they do their research before the matches and generally know who the players are and which clubs they play for plus a little bit of background.

The other night, during the England v Portugal game, one of the English commentators mentioned that West Germany did well to beat Argentina to progress to the Semi final.

Bit of a howler if you ask me.

Of course, the Holy Roman Empire went on to beat West Germany last night...

Just the Roman Empire Hazza, the Holy Roman Empire had a disturbing lump of the country formerly know as West Germany in it.

As an aside, Herbert Prohaska (on ORF) is the best German speaking commentator IMO. Knows his stuff and keeps a limit on the bullshit. He has also stated that he will shave off his moustache if Italy win the final. Apparently he was out in a beergarden with the rest of the crew before the Italy - Germany game and made this comment.

Now they are holding him to it.

So did the Roman Empire, didn't it?

Of course, a large chunk of England was included in that too.

Well Mottie is getting a bit long in the tooth

It was called "Heilliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nationen" or "The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" and can be seen as the first German Empire.

I was shocked (and pleasantly suprised) that Gary Linekar said "and anything the men can do, the women can do better"(alluding to players kissing each other) and then showed footage of two rather pretty Swedish women in the crowd engaging in a passionate kiss.

Its not cricket and not the BBC!!!

@Small Town Boy:

OMG, that why I recognized him so much from my childhood! He looks exactely like Gruber but a bit more 70:s!

Full ack except Kerner. Watch his late night show and his behaviour when Kerner kocht. He lost all my credit. If something bad happened he isn't at a loss for asking more stupid and harsh questions like when a wife had lost her husband he asked more and more intimate questions.

I was wondering why he didn't ask her to cry...

Yeah Klopp is a delight and his analysis were always great. He's straight away which I think is good. Urs Meier was also good. God how hard was it to see the Swiss in the penalty shootout. OMG it was horible to see his reaction afterwards.