Footballer, coach, world champion, president, official, cosmopolitan – Franz Beckenbauer was one of the most colorful figures in football. The “Emperor” died on Sunday (January 7th, 2023) at the age of 78.
He was the “Emperor”, a gifted footballer who had won everything there was to win and continued his success as a coach in order to become a “light figure”. With the “Summer Fairy Tale” in 2006, he crowned his life’s work as World Cup OK boss. But of all things, the 2006 World Cup would later cast a shadow on the shining figure.
Success from the start
The son of a senior postal secretary from the Munich district of Obergiesing, he initially played for SC 1906 Munich as a youth. And even then it was clear that the boy could handle the ball like no other. His path was mapped out. He made his debut at FC Bayern at the age of 18, and when he was just 20 years old, he enchanted all of Germany in the 1966 World Cup team.
Florian Eckl, Sportschau, January 8th, 2024 5:58 p.m
The glorious FC Bayern team of the 70s
What then followed was one great success story, which was crowned by winning the European Cup, now known as the Champions League, three times between 1974 and 1976. In addition, Beckenbauer became German champion four times as a player with FC Bayern, won the DFB Cup four times, won the European Cup Winners’ Cup once and won the World Cup in 1976. Towards the end of his career he played for Cosmos New York and Hamburger SV.
With the national team he became runner-up in England in 1966, European champion in 1972 and finally world champion at the home World Cup in 1974.
Beckenbauer – the “lighting figure” of football
After retiring as an active player in 1983, Beckenbauer moved to the coaching bench. In 1984 he took over the national team from Jupp Derwall as team manager (he was not allowed to call himself national coach because he did not have a coaching license). In 1990, the then 44-year-old also won the World Cup as a coach and thus finally became the “lighting figure” of German football.
In the video: Franz Beckenbauer is dead – an obituary
Beckenbauer – the father of the summer fairy tale
After his time as a player and coach, Beckenbauer was president of FC Bayern Munich from 1994 to 2009. Together with the then manager Uli Hoeneß, he shaped FCB into an internationally competitive club. In 1998 he became vice-president of the German Football Association and made the bid for the 2006 World Cup an “emperor’s affair”.
For the “Summer Fairy Tale” in Germany he flew around the world and apparently received a decent but unclear compensation for his expenses. The first shadows fell on the light figure. Beckenbauer had to explain himself, but he remained vague in his remarks:
Charges were brought, but Beckenbauer did not have to appear in court due to his health. In recent years he has struggled with significant health problems, had to undergo heart operations and rarely appeared in public.
Largely withdrawn from public view
There was no legal clarification – his health was said to be in too bad shape. “What’s happened in the last few years. With all the operations and also with the story of 2006. That really affected me,” said Beckenbauer in a newspaper interview shortly before his 75th birthday.
Since 2016, Franz Beckenbauer has had to undergo heart surgery twice, among other things. He was rarely seen in public anymore.
Age makes Beckenbauer “think for the first time”
He gave one of his rare interviews to the FC Bayern club magazine “51” on the occasion of his 75th birthday in September 2020: This age made him “a little thoughtful for the first time in my life.” Beckenbauer often philosophized about death, and he was also directly confronted with it: on July 31, 2015, his third-born son Stephan died of a brain tumor at the age of 46.
The rumination on the 75th, he said at the time, stems from the fact that “you inevitably come to the point where you think about the fact that life is finite: when will it get to the point where you’ll disappear?” When he looks back, he is “very satisfied,” said Beckenbauer, and that is “the most important thing.”