Franz Beckenbauer, who has died aged 78, was widely regarded as Germany’s best ever footballer. A prominent figure in world football after World War II, he was a highly successful and innovative player who captained West Germany to win the 1974 World Cup and later captained his country to two consecutive Reached the World Cup finals and won the second World Cup. They were in Rome in 1990.
As a club manager, he won the World Cup at the international level, as well as the Bundesliga title and the UEFA Cup; as a player, he won the World Cup, European Championship, three European Cups and five Bundesliga titles in Germany. However, beyond his winning ability, it was the elegant and intelligent nature of his game that attracted admiration from around the world.
By the time Beckenbauer was a teenager at Bayern Munich, he had become the virtual inventor of Total Football. He watched Inter Milan play on TV and was impressed by the attacking performance of their left-back Giacinto Facchetti. He asked himself why a defender could not attack from the center but also attack from the wings and become an attacking player for Bayern. Free man. This role became a cornerstone of the total football practiced by Bayern Munich and their formidable Dutch rivals Ajax in the early 1970s.
Led by Beckenbauer – a tall, erect figure ready to burst through defences – Bayern started out as Ajax’s understudy but eventually emulated them, winning three consecutive European titles between 1974 and 1976. Champion cup. In 1972, he captained an outstanding West German team to win the European Cup, defeating the Soviet Union 3-0 in the final. Two years later, he led the national team to win the 1974 World Cup in Germany, defeating the Netherlands 2-1. He played 103 times for West Germany and 427 league games for Bayern.
Franz was the son of Antonin (née Huffafe) and Franz Sr., a postal worker in Giessing, a suburb of Munich, close to the stadium where he made his name. At eight years old, he was already considered a skilled player, even in a city where footballers and football thrived. 1860 Munich was his favorite club; Bayern Munich, where he later excelled, were just a few beers at the time. In comparison, he is an upstart.
However, Munich 1860’s loss was Bayern’s gain. In 1958 he played for the youth team of a small local club, SC 1906, which actually closed that year and was expected to join 1860. “But in the last game we played SC 1906 against 1860,” he said, “and a half-back slapped me. That was enough for me. 1860 would never catch me. So Bayern Just put me in their ranks.” With rare exceptions, Beckenbauer has always been an athlete who declared that he would rather be fouled and leave the court than commit a foul himself.
He made his debut for Bayern Munich in 1964 when they were still in the Bundesliga 2 and helped them gain promotion to the Bundesliga in their first season.
Thereafter, Bayern quickly became a domestic and European force, winning the 1966-67 German Cup and the 1967 European Cup Winners’ Cup (against Rangers). Beckenbauer served as team captain in the 1968-69 season and led the club to its first league title that year, before winning three consecutive league titles from 1972 to 1974 and 1974-76. Scored a hat-trick in the European Champions Cup. Under his inspiring leadership (he was known as “Caesar” for his commanding, almost imperious demeanor), the Bayern team of that era also included goalkeeper Sepp Meyer and center Gerd Müller, among others. Great player who established himself as one of the greatest teams. The best club team of all time.
Beckenbauer made his national team debut in 1965 as a 21-year-old, before Bayern’s meteoric rise to prominence. He was West Germany’s star player in the 1966 World Cup final, where they finished runners-up to England at Wembley, and again in third place at the 1970 World Cup final in Mexico. Helmut Schön was a tall, mild-mannered West Germany manager who was almost like a father figure to Beckenbauer, having refused for years to allow him to play as a libero for his country. Role. When he finally relented in 1974, West Germany won the tournament and Beckenbauer lifted the trophy as captain.
In 1978, everything seemed to be going well for Beckenbauer in his fourth World Cup appearance in Argentina, but surprisingly, at the age of only 31, he retired from the national team in 1977 and switched to playing for the North American football club New York Cosmos. alliance.
It was an unusual move after nearly 15 years playing at the highest level for Bayern, but the contract was lucrative and large crowds came to New Jersey’s Giants Stadium to watch him play against Pelé and other stars.
In his four seasons with the Cosmos, the team won the National Football Bowl three times (1977, 1978 and 1980). “I’ve accomplished everything in my life – winning titles with Bayern Munich, winning the World Cup with Germany – but the New York Cosmos were the best years of my life,” he said. “In Munich, it was all German players; in Cosmos, there were players from 14 countries and Pele.”
He returned to Germany to play for Hamburger SV (1980-82), winning another Bundesliga winner’s medal at the end of the 1981-82 season, before returning to the United States in 1983 to play one final game with Cosmos before retiring. During his domestic league career, he made 587 appearances and scored 81 goals.
Beckenbauer seemed to have no ambitions to enter management after his retirement, so it was surprising that he agreed to succeed Jupp de Vol as West Germany coach in 1984. Previously, the appointment of West Germany head coaches had gone through an exhaustive qualification process by the German Football Association, which involved not only passing exams but also the operation of small clubs.
In appointing Beckenbauer, the German authorities abandoned firm principles in the hope that his immense popularity and authority would prevail. They were not disappointed.
The team he took over once fell into a slump, but in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, they entered the finals with proper motivation, but they were obviously inferior to Argentina in the finals. At that time, Argentina led 2-0, but was counterattacked by the German team. . , caught up with them, and then lost 3-2. Four years later, Germany won a brutal final in Rome, beating Argentina 1-0 thanks to Andreas Bremer’s penalty kick.
Soon after, Beckenbauer resigned from his position and became the technical director of the French club Marseille, signing a two-year contract worth nearly 500,000 pounds and taking a German fitness coach with him.
But this time his writ did not take effect. The French players were unhappy with training and Beckenbauer quit after just four months. He was even happier when he returned to Bayern Munich and had two brief spells as head coach in 1993-94 and 1996, during which time he won two more honours: the Bundesliga title in 1994 and the UEFA Europa League in 1996 cup champion. Served as club president for two years.
In 1998, he became vice-president of the German Football Association, and in the late 1990s he led Germany’s successful bid to host the 2006 World Cup and served as chairman of the subsequent organizing committee. In 2009, he was appointed Honorary Chairman of Bayern Munich, a position he held until his death.
In 1966, he married his first wife Brigitte. They divorced in 1990. Later that year, he married Sybille Weimer. They divorced in 2004. He is survived by his third wife, Heidi Burmester, and four children: Thomas, Michael, Noel and Francessca. The fifth child, Stephan, who died in 2015, was also a footballer and played for Bayern Munich.
