Brehme’s partner Susanne Schaefer confirmed his death in a statement to Germany’s dpa news agency on Tuesday. Schaefer said Brehme died “suddenly and unexpectedly” in the night from a cardiac arrest.
“Andreas Brehme will forever be in our hearts, as a World Cup winner and, more importantly, as a very special person,” his former club Bayern Munich said on X, formerly Twitter.
Kaiserslautern, another of his former clubs, also paid tribute.
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“FCK mourns the passing of Andreas Brehme. He wore the Red Devils’ shirt for a total of 10 years and became German champion and German Cup winner with FCK.
“In 1990 he fired the German national team to the World Cup title with his penalty and became a football legend. The FCK family is in deep mourning and our thoughts are with Andi’s family and friends.”
Brehme, who played mostly as an attacking left back, was a star of German soccer in the 1980s and 1990s who was crucial to the 1990 World Cup win.
He scored in the semifinal against England, which West Germany eventually won on penalties, and his 85th-minute penalty decided the final in Rome against Argentina.
Winning the World Cup brought a wave of national celebrations across Germany, which was in the process of reunification after the fall of the Berlin Wall the year before.
He went on to play a total of 86 international games for West Germany and unified Germany.
At club level, Brehme won the German title twice, once with Bayern in 1987 and once in Kaiserslautern’s improbable run to the championship in 1998, in its first season since promotion. He also won the Italian Serie A with Inter in 1989.
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