Farewell to Frank Mill: I still owe him an apology

Anyone who wanted to get Frank Mill chatting was not allowed to do one thing: ask him about the one scene that happened four decades ago and that nevertheless shaped his career more than all 123 Bundesliga goals combined.

I can't forget that scene for a very personal reason: I came of age the day it happened and joked about it at what was probably the biggest birthday party of my life. Later, when I met Frank Mill, I prudently kept this fun fact from him. It was a good thing I did: He hated that scene.

In his very first game for Borussia Dortmund, the new striker ran toward the empty Bayern goal at Munich's Olympic Stadium and only had to use the inside of his instep to push the ball over the goal line. But in that 41st minute on August 9, 1986, Frank Mill's shot from three meters out hit the post.

The result was forgotten (it was 2-2). For years, his folly in front of goal dominated the headlines : "I wanted to do it like Pierre Littbarski. My plan: swing, tuck the ball between my feet, and elegantly slot it in after a stepover."

I thought of the scene today when I learned of his much too early death, weeks after his heart attack in Milan. Memories immediately flooded back, and I must confess: I still owe Frank Mill the apology that his life's work shouldn't be reduced to a shot that hit the post, as is now happening in too many obituaries, including this one. And I don't mean the titles he won. He was World Champion in 1990, Olympic bronze medalist in 1988, and DFB Cup winner with Dortmund in 1989. He was more than that.

Frank Mill is probably the last of his kind: a sly fox on the pitch, just like Manfred Burgsmüller. Neither of them were particularly fast, lacking the solid build for tough tackles, neither were great in the air, and certainly not eager to run when the coach demanded defensive work. But woe betide them if they entered the penalty area.

Frank Mill scored 252 goals in 648 games for Rot-Weiss Essen, Mönchengladbach, Dortmund, and Fortuna Düsseldorf, and Manni Burgsmüller scored even more than that. Is it just a coincidence that both come from Essen?

To this day, one wonders why someone like Frank Mill, who was Dortmund's spokesman for years before coach Ottmar Hitzfeld dropped him, never played more than the 17 international caps granted to him by national coach Jupp Derwall and later Franz Beckenbauer. Yes, during the best phase of his career, in the late 1980s, there was no getting past Rudi Völler and Jürgen Klinsmann. But today, every coach would be happy to have an instinctive striker like Frank Mill up front, one who was gifted on the ball and inventive in every attack.

He never boasted about his exploits in public; footballers from the Ruhr region generally don't do that. He could tell his anecdotes in small groups, more modestly than exaggeratedly, and people enjoyed listening to him. That's why people loved him: Frank Mill, without World Cup appearances or European Cup triumphs, became a brand in German football, a personification of what we sometimes lack in football: down-to-earthness. His cunning isn't something that's taught in any youth academy. It came from within.

Even Diego Maradona felt this in 1990. As Germany celebrated its World Cup triumph with the national team in Rome, Frank Mill seized a moment of weakness from the stunned Argentine star and, without a clue of Spanish, ripped the number 10 jersey off his shoulders, a man who was in mourning. It wasn't captain Lothar Matthäus or opponent Guido Buchwald who managed it – but Frank Mill, the reserve without a World Cup appearance. Today, the souvenir hangs in the German Football Museum in Dortmund. He wanted everyone to see it.

Frank Mill died on August 5, 2025, at the age of 67 from the effects of a heart attack.