As the World Cup fast approaches, we bring you a bit of football history that took place on Korčula.
Can you imagine the following scene? Lionel Messi just won the World Cup for Argentina. After the long wait, they finally did it, winning over Germany in the finals, after the only goal of the match came from the penalty spot after Messi himself was fouled in the box. When the celebration with the team was over, he and his wife decide to celebrate the team's victory in Korčula, in one of the hotels on the island?
Well, something similar to that happened in 1990. Rudi Völler, one of the key players in the Team Germany that has won the World Cup in Italy in that year, decided to rest after the tournament right across the Adriatic, on Korčula. He and his wife were staying in Marko Polo Hotel (still exists today, recently been renovated and has received 4-star rating), and when Rudi decided to take a walk around the hotel, he saw that there was a football pitch right by the hotel, colloquially called "Park of the Princes" (also, still exists to this day), and some local folk were playing some football there. He sat at the stands and watches the game for a while, and then one of the goalies gets hurt, so the locals invite the "furešt" (a word often used in Dalmatia to describe any foreigners, although sometimes used for anyone who is not very local to the place you're in) if he wanted to fill in. Quite surprisingly, and completely unimaginable in today's World, he said "yes".
The story continues to claim that he was quite good with the goalie gloves on, but after a while a night porter of the hotel was walking by, saw what was going on and called his friend, who was playing, to tell him that they put Rudi Völler, the striker from the World Champions team on the goal. They felt bad for their mistake, so they put Tante Käthe (Völler's nickname) in the game, but, c'mon, there was no place for him attacking the goal, he was playing in the defence! The local football heroes were attacking, the guys who knew what they were doing!
Again, the German wasn't complaining, it's better to be in the defence than back on the deck-chair, sunbathing, reading and talking to his wife. So, for a week the local team played with one of the greatest players of that time, winning (surprise-surprise), having beers after the games.
Then Rudi finished his vacation, but ever since the local Korčulan folk calls him "Our Rudi".
The details of the story differ, of course, since it's been almost 20 years since that happened, but it's an absolute true story that Rudi Völler was in Korčula in summer of 1990, after having won the World Cup, and that he was playing football with the local amateurs. Of course, there were no smartphones or cameras around every tourist's neck, so there's no photographic evidence (one has to wonder, though: people actually had cameras in Croatia in late eighties and early nineties; how come no-one went down to Marko Polo Hotel to take a photo of that if it was happening for a few days?), but there are people still around who have played in those games and who tell the story to whoever wants to hear.
It's also a story about football itself, as it is impossible to imagine something like that happening today, where Messi or Ronaldo would play football with local amateurs in a foreign country. And even if they had such a crazy idea, imagine how the Barcelona or Real Madrid management would react if they found out? And, back then, Roma's management wouldn't really care, if someone even told them. So what if he plays with people he doesn't know, drinks, smokes? Everyone else does as well. It's virtually impossible to imagine the best players of today having a beer with some Korčulan locals: their role today is to market a multinational corporation's beer to the public.
That's why people of Korčula who love football cherish the story of Rudi Völler playing football in front of the Marko Polo Hotel, as it signifies how much the game they love has changed.
(Translated and adapted from Maro Marušić's article on dubrovačkidnevnik.hr, accessed at https://www.index.hr/sport/clanak/pa-jeste-li-vi-normalni-ono-kad-je-svjetski-prvak-rudi-v%C3%B6ller-na-korculi-igrao-nogomet-s-pajom-i-pecom/958248.aspx)
