Latecomer Hrubesch's perfect timing

Lateness defined Horst Hrubesch's career. At 23 he was still plying his trade in the lower rungs on the German football ladder but six years later he was spearheading the national team's attack at the 1980 UEFA European Championship, after an inevitably late call-up.

Without a goal during the group stage his place in the final against Belgium 28 years ago today was in doubt but West Germany coach Jupp Derwall "made the right choice" and retained him – Hrubesch responded with two goals, including a last-gasp winner.

The year was 1980. Huge rises in oil prices were sending shockwaves worldwide, Robert Mugabe frequently topped the news headlines and the United States was gripped by pre-election fever. The build-up to the UEFA European Championship was marked by a broken leg to one of the continent's best strikers, and while this time around that misfortune befell Croatia's Eduardo da Silva, then it was West Germany's Klaus Fischer.

It meant a chance for Hrubesch of Hamburger SV, a 29-year-old with only two caps and no goals to his name. "I could have been picked anyway but it is likely that I would not have played any games," he recalled. "Even before the European Championship there was a game in Hannover against France that I didn't play in so everything really happened so fast in the end.

"I have always started a bit late," said the man known as Kopfball-Ungeheuer ('The Heading Monster'). "I was 23 when I played my first match in the Bundesliga and I was 28 when I played my first international match." The trend continued at the tournament in Italy. Hrubesch spearheaded an attack-minded team, with Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and Klaus Allofs playing just behind him and Bernd Schuster and Hansi Müller providing the midfield guile.

The former pair initially shouldered the attacking burden, Rummenigge's second-half strike earning an opening-day victory against Czechoslovakia before Allofs booked West Germany's place in the final with a hat-trick to see off the Netherlands 3-2. "We had a good team, one of the best in Europe," said Hrubesch. "We were always capable of dominating the tournament and we went to Rome [for the final] to win the title."

Belgium were their opponents and, having failed again to register in the third group game against Greece, the pressure was on Hrubesch. "[My place] was in danger. I had played three games without scoring and if Derwall hadn't selected me, I couldn't have argued. But looking back at it, he made the right choice." That is an understatement and with the game only ten minutes old Hrubesch broke the deadlock after great work from the player of the tournament, Schuster.

West Germany failed to make their first-half dominance pay, however, and looked like regretting it with 15 minutes remaining when René Vandereycken equalised from the penalty spot. "We wouldn't have made it in extra time because it would have been too much," admitted Hrubesch. "It was very hot that day and I recall being so tired after the game that it was hard to lift the trophy."

Fortunately for West Germany the Hamburg forward ensured they avoided the additional half-hour, turning in Rummenigge's corner with a trademark header two minutes from the end. It really is better late than never.