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In One Shot: Zanazanyan and Beckenbauer at Hrazdan Stadium


Photo: Zanazanyan's personal archive


The stories of most beautiful and bright victories, painful and sad defeats in sports are reflected in photos as well.

Mediamax Sport’s new “In One Shot” series will tell about those photos and present interesting memories connected with them.

The photo was made on March 19 in 1975 at Ararat-Bayern Munich return match in Champions League 1/4 finals.

Hovhannes Zanazanyan, who headed the team at that time, tells the story.

“We played with Bayern Munich at Hrazdan. Both teams had all-star line up and were very strong. We became USSR champion and won the Cup, and Bayern Munich had 7 World champions. On that day, our stadium was bursting at the seams: there were 75,000 viewers.

The teams stood in parallel rows before the match, and Franz Beckenbauer and I stood close as the two captains. We were entering the field when he tapped me, pointed at the field and said “Amigo, amigo”, probably thinking that we were Spaniards, and as usual said they were going to win.

I got very angry and replied in Armenian that the field was ours and so would be the victory. He tilted his head in surprise and said nothing else.

We indeed won with 1:0 score, but couldn’t qualify for semi-finals as they won with 2:0 score in the first game.”

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