Sepp Maier Biography

Sepp Maier was born on February 28, 1944, in Metten,

. In German football, he was nicknamed the "Die Katze von Anzing" for his dazzling reactions inside the goal. A player who many believe is the best goalkeeper in the history of German football and Bayern Munich. Sepp Maier is a goalkeeper who played a prominent role in the success of Bayern Munich and the German national team in the 1970s and is one of the main figures in the golden generation of German football in that decade.

Along with Franz Beckenbauer and Gerd Muller, Maier was among the players who played a key role in the start of Bayern Munich's success, especially in the team that won three European Club Cups. As previously mentioned, Sepp Maier holds the record for 700 games and 18 years’ career for Bayern Munich. He has won thirteen valuable trophies with Bayern during this time, including four Bundesliga titles and three European Club Cups.

He was also named the country's best footballer three times in 1975, 1977, and 1978, and many German experts consider him the best goalkeeper in their country's football history. FIFA considers Sepp Maier to be the fourth-best goalkeeper in the history of world football, after Lev Yashin, the former Soviet legend, Gordon Banks, the energetic Englishman, and Dino Zoff, the strong wall of the Italian national football team. In the national arena, he played for the German national football team for thirteen years (1966-1979), resulting in 95 caps.

Sepp Maier nationality

is German, and he is known as one of the most popular players in German football history. Sepp Maier was a superb goalkeeper and, undeniably, is one of the legends of Bayern Munich. Sure it is not all about Maier's life story as there is so much to say. Stay tuned as we take a look at Sepp Maier biography.

All You Need to Know About Sepp Maier Biography

Josef Dieter Maier or Sepp Maier was born on February 28, 1944, in Metten, Germany, and is now 77. In fact, Sepp Maier holds the record for attending this famous German football club. Sepp Maier holds the record for most club games in Bayern Munich. Of these 700 games, he has worn the Bayern shirt 537 times in German club league matches.

Interestingly, his student Oliver Kahn is also the second record holder among the Bavarians with 632 official games in Bayern Munich. Maier helped Bayern Munich reach the top of German football with the help of another German football legend, Franz Beckenbauer.

After that, with the presence of another legend, such as Gerd Muller, known as the German football bomber, Bayern Munich achieved many successes at the club level in Germany and Europe, including three European Club Cup titles. Sepp Maier is also a legend in the German national football team, which participated in various competitions and tournaments under the name of Germany.

Sepp Maier Information

In this part of Sepp Maier biography, you could find some general information about Sepp Maier listed down here.

Sepp Maier Bio

• Full Name: Josef Dieter Maier

• Nickname: “Die Katze von Anzing”

• Profession: Former Professional Football Player

Sepp Maier Physical Stats

• Weight: 77 Kilograms

• Height: 1.85 Meters

• Eye Color: Not Available

• Hair Color: Grey

Sepp Maier Football Information

• Position: Goalkeeper

• Jersey Number: 1

• Professional Debut: 1962

Sepp Maier Date of Birth and Personal Info

• Date of Birth: 28 February 1955

• Birth Place: Metten, Germany

• Zodiac Sign: Pisces

• Nationality: German

Sepp Maier Early Life

Sepp Maier childhood

was all about football. Sepp Maier, nicknamed "Die Katze von Anzing", was born on February 28, 1944, in Metten. Josef Dieter Maier or Sepp Maier was born on February 28, 1944, in Metten, Germany, and is now 77. Alongside his student, Oliver Kahn, he is considered as one of the most successful and leading goalkeepers in football history.

He is one of the stars who has spent his entire career at Bayern Munich. When he was just eight years old, he was already playing as a right-back on the TSV Haar team, even becoming the top scorer in the state youth competition. But when he became fourteen, he faced

with his team in the final match of the youth tournament, and everything has changed.

In that game, the team's main goalkeeper could not attend due to injury, and the coach forced to place Sepp Maier inside the net. Although Maier and his teammates suffered a humiliating 12-0 defeat to the Bayern youth, the young Maier could prevent his team's heavier defeat with amazing jumps and special reflexes in that game. In fact, that game became a great platform for Sepp Maier, and he became the favorite of the Bayern Munich youth coach. In 1959, Maier joined the youth of Bayern Munich and played for the youth of Bayern for three years.

"My parents were called Josef and Maria. My brother Horst was 4 years old when I was born, and my little brother Hans was born 6 years after me. When I was 2 years old, we moved from Metten to Haar. My father worked in the hospital as a clerk in the office and my mother as a nurse.

We were a very sporty family. My mother played handball when she was young; my father played football at TSV Haar. I was an avid soccer player and gymnast even as a child. In gymnastics, I was twice district champion in the floor and bars and on the horizontal bar. When it came to football, I initially limited myself to playing in the meadows and the garden with Brother Horst, friends, and the neighborhood's children.

When I was 7 years old, I went to TSV Haar. Thanks to a special permit from the Bavarian Football Association, I was allowed to play in the TSV Haar school team when I was 8 years old. At that time, you were normally only allowed to play in a team when you were 10 years old. I was a dreaded wisp and scorer for my team. But I also went into goal for fun during training. I was able to use my suppleness, which I had gained during gymnastics, and I stayed in the gymnastics department of TSV Haar." Sepp Maier once said about his childhood in an interview.

He joined the first team in 1962 when he was eighteen years old, and this was the beginning of his eighteen years of successful presence in Bayern Munich and European competitions.

Sepp Maier life story

is filled with memories of joyful moments, which probably makes him one of the best personalities in football history.

Sepp Maier Profile

In this section of 

Sepp Maier biography

, we will look at his professional career from his early days until now. FC Bayern Munich’s fulminating rise to the pinnacle of the world game in the late 1960s and ‘70s would, in a nutshell, have been almost unthinkable without the contribution of their legendary last line of defense, Sepp Maier.

Possessed of uncanny agility, he earned the nickname ‘the Cat from Anzing.’ In addition to his superb reflexes, Maier’s awareness of the game made him a pioneer of modern goalkeeping. In addition to the nickname " Die Katze von Anzing," he also earned the name "Karl Valentin des football." From 1988 to October 10, 2004, he was the goalkeeping coach of the German national team. Stay tuned to read more about Sepp Maier biography and get to know him better.

Style of Play

Regarding Sepp Maier’s style of play, he used to play as a Goalkeeper. Sepp Maier was one of those goalkeepers who was not afraid of anything. He had fast reflexes like a cat and could control the toughest balls in a moment. Because of his quick and lightning reflexes, he was nicknamed "Die Katze von Anzing" ("the cat from Anzing"), which showed how successful and wonderful he was. He is still considered by many to be the best goalkeeper in German history.

Reception

Sepp Maier is 65 and has retired from football. As one of the members of Germany in the 1974 World Cup, Sepp Maier is very popular among the people. 

Not only is he a great legend in German history, but he is also a myth at Bayern Munich. For all his affability on and off the pitch, it is for his footballing ability that he will be first and foremost remembered.

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appearances for FC Bayern, including an incredible 442-in-a-row sequence, and 95 for West Germany, making him the nation’s most-capped goalkeeper. And club and country alike had never had a custodian quite like, either before or since ‘the cat’ made his final leap. As a national goalkeeping coach, Sepp Maier had a share in winning the World Cup in 1990, and in 1996 the German national team became European champions.

Sepp Maier wrote several books about football training, for example, the titles "Artist der Nation" (1978), "Ich bin doch kein Tor" (1980), "Super-Torwart-Training" (1990), "Mit Spaß zum Erfolg. Torwart-Training"(2000) or" Wer mit dem Ball tanzt"(2000). Meanwhile, Sepp Maier drew attention not only in sporting terms. With his typical humor, he also made some media-effective fun interludes that entertained the audience in addition to his sporting achievements.

Goal Celebration

Sepp Maier's goal celebration was not very special, but he really used to do it with a certain enthusiasm. He would raise his hands in celebration; this was the way Sepp Maier celebration looked like. He used to do it over and over.

Sepp Maier Outside Football

Sepp Maier outside football is a very respected person and has a story like everyone else. It is easy to say that Sepp Maier is one of the most relaxed people in German football. After ending his playing career, Maier set about finding his own successor, both for Bayern Munich and the German national team.

As a goalkeeping coach, he helped Germany reunification lift a third World Cup in 1990, with a European Championship title following in 1996. He played for the German national team for many years, but after being fired from his position, he left football and no longer has the former closeness to football. Instead, he prefers to go on vacation with his family and enjoy quiet days. Stay tuned to read more about 

Sepp Maier biography 

and get to know him better.

Sepp Maier Personal Life

The former world champion and goalkeeping coach Sepp Maier married his long-term partner Monika Roth in Merano in South Tyrol. This was reported by the Munich edition of the "Bild" newspaper on its website. "After 20 years, you can already try it," Maier told the newspaper. It's his second marriage. The wedding remained a secret until the end. "Only Oli Kahn knew about it.

We didn't want to hang it up; there are only 60 family members and closest friends." Sepp has married Monika for the second time since 2008, and the couple has a child from their first marriage named Alexandra. We should also note that

Sepp Maier religion

is Christianity.

Family, Children and Relationships

Sepp Maier is married to Monika Roth and has a child. In his first marriage to Agnes Maier, Maier became the father of daughter Alexandra, and in 2008, he married Monika Roth again. They met each other 12 years ago, and after some years of being just friends, they decided to get married. But, apart from Kahn, nobody at Bayern knew anything about the marriage.

Philanthropy

Sepp Maier has done charity work with United charity (YoungWings). The online counseling organization YoungWings is there for children that have lost a close family member. They are there to give empathetic advice to help the grieving cope with the loss. The Bavarian ministry of education has given the Nicolaidis Foundation the task of building a network system throughout Bavaria for children that have lost someone important to them or have experienced some trauma.

The mission of this network is to get these children the help they need. To achieve this goal, the already existing online counseling of the foundation has been expanded and professionalized. Children and adolescents between twelve and twenty-one years have the chance to exchange thoughts and views in the forum or use the opportunity for a private counseling session, all on www.youngwings.de.

There is also a database for those looking for a drop-in center close to home. Keep reading to know more about Sepp Maier biography and see if he has had any legal issues so far or not.

Legal Issues

In addition to his football activities, Maier built up a second economic pillar by running a tennis park in his hometown of Anzing near Munich.

Maier, who was notorious during his active time with his teammates for his outbursts of anger at actual or supposed poor performance and once even slapped an annoying journalist, was happy to give the humorous mood-maker. After giving specific information about Sepp Maier's legal issues, we go to the next part, the Sepp Maier career statistics part.

Sepp Maier Career Statistics

Sepp Maier statistics are just fantastic. As a goalkeeper and Gerd Muller and Franz Beckenbauer, he was one of the club's key performers and the German national team for a long time.

Sepp Maier can look back on 473 Bundesliga games for FC Bayern Munich, of which he played 422 times continuously. With the Bavarian club, the German goalkeeper won four Bundesliga titles in 1969, 1972, 1973, and 1974. He also won the DFB Cup four times with the team in 1966, 1967, 1969, and 1971. In addition to this, Cup winners in 1967, three times European championship winners in 1974, 1975, and 1976 and once world cup winners in 1976.

Club

Maier had some perfect years at Bayern Munich. Born in Metten, Bavaria, Maier spent his entire professional career at Bayern Munich. He began playing for Bayern's youth sides in 1958. During the 1970s, he was part of the legendary Bayern team, which included Franz Beckenbauer and Gerd Muller, which won four West German league titles, three German Cups, and three consecutive European Cups.

He had previously tasted success in Europe in 1967 when Bayern won the European Cup Winners Cup, defeating

. in the final in extra time. In the five games of the four European finals, the 1974 title having been won in a replay, Maier allowed a total of one goal.

Maier was elected German Footballer of the Year in 1975, 1977, and 1978. Between 1966 and 1979, he played in 442 consecutive Bundesliga matches, still a German national record. The day that suddenly changed his life was July 14, 1979. A violent thunderstorm, aquaplaning, a serious car accident. "At that time, I thought nothing could happen to me. I was cocky," Maier confessed in a very personal film on his birthday on Bavarian television.

Even in this fateful moment, Hoeness was at Maier's side. "He saved my life, which I will never forget. Uli took me out of the hospital and brought me to a specialist," Maier described ten years ago in a DPA interview.

International

Sepp Maier has a 13-year history for the German national team. Maier began playing for the West German national team in 1966. Sepp Maier's first national game was in 1966 against

in Dublin. The Germans won the match 4-0, and Maier made his first clean sheet in his first national game. Sepp Maier's first major national tournament was the 1966 World Cup, hosted by Great Britain.

However, the 22-year-old Maier was a reserve goalkeeper in those competitions. The Germans finally left the result to England in a talkative final to settle for the runner-up position in the World Cup. Thus, Maier is one of the players who has been able to attend four World Cups.

After the last Championship, he became the number one goalkeeper in German football at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, in which the Germans failed to reach the final after a 4-3 defeat to

in the semi-finals, also known as the Game of the Century, the tournament ended in West Germany finishing third. However, this was not the end of the Germans, and they had always shown that they could do well to break the bridge to victory.

Two years later, at the 1972 World Cup in Belgium, Sepp Maier and the West German national football team won their first Euro title. They defeated the former Soviet Union 3-0 to win this important tournament. After this great success, now it was the turn of the 1974 World Cup, this time hosted by the Germans. The Germans were literally a solid team on all fronts.

With stars such as Sepp Maier, Franz Beckenbauer, Paul Breitner, and Gerd Muller, they beat all the teams one-by-one, and in the final game, they won against the

that had a star-like Johan Cruyff. Maier also had a special aura in those matches, and his good games caught the eyes of the German captain, Franz Beckenbauer. The German football emperor considered Maier to be the best goalkeeper in German football history by far. Stay tuned to read more about

Sepp Maier biography

and find out what awards and titles he has won.

Managerial

After retiring from the world of football, Sepp Maier has been the goalkeeping coach of the German national football team since 1988 for sixteen years. In the meantime, from 1994 to 2008, he worked as a goalkeeping coach for Bayern Munich. However, in 2004 he was dismissed by national coach Klinsmann after a disagreement that was closely watched by the media.

 According to Klinsmann, Maier had campaigned too aggressively in public on the “goalkeeper question” for Oliver Kahn, although Klinsmann favored Jens Lehmann. Maier was also active and successful as a goalkeeping coach at FC Bayern for a long time. The Germans have always been known worldwide for their good goalkeepers and top class, but perhaps no goalkeeper as good as Sepp Maier has been able to keep up with him in terms of continued success and stability.

Perhaps one of the reasons we named him the best goalkeeper in German history, above

and Oliver Kahn, is his greater national and club honors. Stay tuned to read more about Sepp Maier biography and find out what awards and titles he has won.

Sepp Maier Honors

The former German star performed brilliantly, especially when he was with Bayern Munich, winning the 1972 European Cup and 1974 World Cup with the German national team. He won four Bundesliga titles and four

titles with the Bavarians.

Josef Maier, known worldwide only by the first name "Sepp," is the most successful German goalkeeper of all time. The long-time keeper of FC Bayern Munich and the national team has won almost every title to win during his 16-year career in professional football and stayed on after his career ended one of the most popular and successful German athletes.

Until a serious traffic accident that abruptly ended his career in 1979, Maier was one of the world's best goalkeepers, and for many experts, even number 1 in world football. Thanks to his brilliant control of the penalty area and his excellent positional play.

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