Champions of the world, champions of Europe and always the most formidable of opponents thanks to the sheer quality and quantity of top-class talent being created – the 1970s was a wonderful decade for West Germany. The national teams that won the 1972 European Nations Cup and the World Cup on home soil two years later were based around the stars of Bayern Munich and Borussia Mönchengladbach, teams that were as dominant in the Bundesliga as the nationalmannschaft was on the international stage.It took a penalty-kick defeat to Czechoslovakia in the 1976 Nations Cup Final to finally break the iron grip West Germany had exerted over the European game since the beginning of the decade.