"They had a great team ... Beckenbauer, Muller, Sepp Maier in goal. This was a team going on to Mexico for the World Cup in 1970 and they got to the semi-final and were beaten 4-3 by the Italians."
Paddy Mulligan was the Irish player who had the honour of scoring against that brilliant West Germany side in a 1970 friendly, as an Ireland side also featuring the great John Giles fell to a 2-1 defeat.
"I was doing a marking job on Beckenbauer," recalled Paddy on the Newstalk Rewind podcast with Oisin Langan.
"It was great because he didn't want to get kicked and he said it to me: 'Don't do that, don't do that, World Cup, World Cup'. It was an invitation straight away and I never left him alone then for the whole game."
Paddy also revealed that 1974 World Cup champion and three-time European Cup winner with Bayern Munich, Beckenbauer, "kept moaning" about the treatment being meted out to him on the pitch that night, and reckons that the Germany legend might have remembered him from a 1966 clash between Bayern Munich and Shamrock Rovers.
Paddy Mulligan sporting long, flowing locks back in 1970 (S&G / S&G and Barratts/EMPICS Sport)
He also looked back on the goal that he scored that night in West Berlin's Olympic Stadium, whose epic vastness he also recalled.
"I managed to get on the end of a cross," he said, adding that Mr [Eamon] Dunphy was the supplier of the ball in, before quipping, "it was about the only positive thing he ever did in an Irish jersey."
"I got my head to it and got it into the back of the net - and I'd hit the crossbar in the first half with a shot when it was 0-0. We played well that day, but the Germans were in training mode to a great degree."
Listen to the full chat between Oisin and Paddy on the Rewind.
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