Gerd Mueller, the diminutive former Bayern Munich and West Germany footballer who passed away on Sunday aged 75, had an unerring instinct for a goal in a career during which he had some claim to being the greatest goalscorer in the game.

Mueller was only 5ft 8in tall, but his muscular legs gave him explosive speed over short distances and a surprising spring, enabling him to out-jump taller defenders. He could twist and turn sharply in tight spaces in the opposition penalty area.

His most important goal — the winner in the 1974 World Cup final on home soil against the Netherlands — was classic Mueller, in one movement controlling a pass that was behind him and swivelling his body to somehow get in a right-foot shot with minimal backlift.

Not for nothing was he called “Der Bomber”. He scored 566 goals for Bayern Munich in 453 appearances between 1964 and 1979, helping the team to four German titles, four German Cup wins and three European Cup victories in that time.

He still holds the record for the most goals scored in the Bundesliga with 365 in 427 league games.

At international level his record was simply astonishing: 68 goals in 62 appearances for West Germany.

Former midfielder Rainer Bonhof remembers setting up Mueller for that World Cup-winning goal in Munich.

“I played the ball in from the right so hard that the ball came backwards off his foot. And then he fired the ball through a Dutch player’s legs and into the goal for 2-1. He was the only one who could do such a thing,” Bonhof told Monday’s edition of Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.