Harald Anton Schumacher, better known as Toni Schumacher, is perhaps the most hated goalkeeper to have ever lived, his horror tackle on French defender Patrick Battiston in the 1982 World Cup semi-final causing international outrage - not least because he escaped without even conceding a free kick.
When Michel Platini picked up the ball near the halfway line of the tie, turned and played an enticing ball over Germany's defence, Schumacher came hurtling out of his goal, eager to intercept the ball before Battiston got on the end of it.
Speaking exclusively to FourFourTwo in the latest issue, a World Cup special available to order, Schumacher describes his reasoning behind the decision - and the subsequent aftermath.
"As I stormed towards him, it quickly dawned on me that he’d get to the ball first," Schumacher said. "It was bouncing, and I knew he’d try to lift it over me into the empty net. I had to do anything I could to prevent him from scoring.
"I threw myself at the ball. My intention was simply to try to make myself as big as possible, in the hope of getting something on it or putting the player off. He nudged the ball past me with his toe and I realised I was now hurtling directly towards him. To protect myself, I turned my body to absorb the impact and felt my hip hit him. To my relief, as I looked back towards my goal, the ball had gone just wide.
"I could immediately sense a change in the atmosphere. Something bad had happened. Patrick Battiston, the Frenchman I’d collided with, was lying unconscious on the floor. Platini rushed over to help him – he later said he thought Battiston was dead when he reached him."
Indeed, Battiston's unconsciousness soon led to a coma, after he received oxygen on the pitch. He had also lost two front teeth and had three cracked ribs.
Despite the obviously late challenge, though, Dutch referee Charles Corver didn't even award a penalty for the foul. While Schumacher believes that he had every right to go for the ball in the manner that he did - after all, the German claims he didn't intentionally injure Battisto - he does ponder how differently he might have been perceived if the referee spotted the incident.
"In hindsight, 40 years on, I wonder if a red card might have saved me lots of trouble, if the backlash over my challenge might have been less severe. Of course, I didn’t think about any of that at the time. I thought I deserved to remain on the pitch. I had a game to focus on.
"After Patrick was taken off on a stretcher, the second half resumed, along with the wrath of the French players. They repeatedly insulted me and the crowd were baying for my blood for the rest of the match, which ended 1-1 after 90 minutes."
Regrettably, that wasn't the last of what Schumacher had to deal with as a result of the challenge.
"After returning from Spain [the World Cup hosts], I was bombarded with hate mail and death threats from all over the world. Naturally, the French were the most upset. They hung effigies of me in the streets and compared me to a Nazi concentration camp commandant.
"A French newspaper later ran a poll to determine the least popular person in the history of their nation. Adolf Hitler came second... guess who beat him.
"I also received threats from Germans, against my family as well as me directly. On two separate occasions, attempts were made to kidnap my children from school, but thankfully their teachers were smart enough to recognise that those collecting them weren’t family members and called the police."
Playing for Cologne in the Bundesliga at the time, Schumacher explains how he he needed bodyguards to accompany him wherever he went, while his mental state understandably suffered.
"I suffered from depression for a long time following that summer. I’ve described that period as like being stalked by a large wolf that snarled and snapped at me all the time. I felt anxious and vulnerable, and I was constantly fearing the worst.
"Fortunately, I was able to come through it OK."
Schumacher also admitted that his main regret about the Patrick Batiston incident isn’t the tackle itself. Instead, he regrets how he handled the media immediately after the match, flippantly making comments that he wishes he could now take back.
"Reporters rushed onto the field and I was bombarded with questions about the Battiston incident, which I found frustrating. One reporter asked me how I felt having knocked out a couple of Patrick’s teeth.
"Regretfully, in the heat of the moment I told him, 'If that’s all the damage done, tell him I’ll pay for new ones.' As you can imagine, that didn’t go down too well.
"Of course, I didn’t know at that time about the extent of Patrick’s injuries. Had I known that he’d also broken ribs and damaged his vertebrae, I would never have spoken so callously."
