Maurice Banach’s death shook not only Cologne but all of German football. That Köln could not play against Dynamo Dresden after such a shock and had to postpone the match felt entirely natural in those bleak autumn days of 1991. At the Belgium-Germany international a few days later, there was a minute’s silence. German football had lost one of its great hopes, a player on the verge of the national side, a man for whom every door seemed to stand open.\n\nYears earlier, Berti Vogts, then coach of the U21 side and later national team manager, had already recognised his talent. “I felt immediately that he was something special,” Vogts recalled on the 25th anniversary of Banach’s death.
His then teammate Falko Götz agreed: “Everyone liked him, and he quickly became the mood-maker.”
