10 facts you might not know about Roma hero Rudi Voller

To celebrate the birthday of Rudi Voller, who turned 56 on Wednesday, we present 10 facts you might not know about the German striker.

Despite being born in the small German town of Hanau, and going on to play for four teams in his homeland during his career, Rudi Voller actually played more league games for AS Roma than any other club during his illustrious professional career.

Having joined Roma from Werder Bremen in 1987, Voller eventually left five years later having endeared himself to the Giallorossi fans – helping deliver victory in the 1991 Coppa Italia along the way.

Voller returned to the club as coach briefly in 2004 but subsequently returned to another of his former clubs, Bayer Leverkusen, where he currently operates as sporting director.

Here are ten facts you might not know about Voller:

1. Voller’s nickname in Germany is Tante Kathe (‘Aunt Kathy’). It was given to him by international teammate Thomas Berthold – both men were from around Frankfurt, where old ladies with grey hair styled in a perm were sometimes referred to by kids as ‘Tante Kathe’. When Voller’s unmistakeable curly hair began to go grey Berthold gave him the nickname, and it quickly stuck – especially when German media got wind of it.

2. Voller was never supposed to be Germany’s national coach. The German FA originally wanted to appoint Bayer Leverkusen boss Christoph Daum in 2000, but Daum still had a year on his contract at the club. Voller, sporting director at Leverkusen at the time, was thus appointed as a man who knew Daum’s approach and could start implementing it while the coach finished up his club commitments. As it turned out Daum would never take the job due to issues with drug use, and Voller ended up staying in the role and leading Germany to the final of the 2002 World Cup.

3. Voller is thus one of only three people – the others being Mario Zagallo and Franz Beckenbauer – to reach the World Cup final as both a player (in 1986 and 1990) and a coach.

4. Voller made 143 league appearances and scored 45 league goals for Roma.

5. Overall he played 198 times for the Giallorossi, scoring 68 goals – good enough for 13th on the list of the club’s all-time leading scorers. He is the club’s third highest-scoring foreign player behind Abel Balbo and Pedro Manfredini (Brazilian-born Dino Da Costa played international football for Italy).

6. In 1990, Voller lifted the World Cup in the Stadio Olimpico – saying later “it was like a dream come true” to win at the ground where he played his club football.

7. Another memorable moment for Voller also came in Rome 15 years later – as he and other members of Germany’s organising committee for the 2006 World Cup were granted a brief audience with the Pope, who blessed the impending tournament.

8. Voller was inducted into the Roma Hall of Fame in 2014 - but it did not always look like he would be such a success in Italy. Injuries meant he managed just three goals in his first season at the Giallorossi, and he had only added one more by Christmas of his second season. But Voller never gave up and his work ethic soon began to deliver goals – so much so that Curva Sud fans came up with a chant (“Fly, German, Fly!”) to acknowledge the effort put in by ‘il Tedesco volante’ (‘the flying German’).

9. Voller is perhaps most famous for another incident at the 1990 World Cup, when he has spat at by Dutch player Frank Rijkaard during their last-16 match. Despite doing little wrong, Voller himself was also sent off in the altercation – but Voller subsequently showed a remarkable capacity to forgive and forget, taking part in an advert for Dutch butter company (slogan: ‘Everything better in butter’) to bury the hatchet a few months later.

10. Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, at the turn of the millennium the town’s sports complex was renamed after Voller – he has long been one of the country’s most popular and respected sportsmen. Hanau’s other most famous sons? The Brothers Grimm.