Franz Beckenbauer

Franz Beckenbauer

Personal information
Full name	Franz Anton Beckenbauer
Position(s)	Sweeper

Franz Anton Beckenbauer (born September 11, 1945) is a German football coach, manager, and former player, nicknamed der Kaiser ("the emperor") because of his elegant style, his leadership qualities, his first name "Franz" (reminiscent of the Austrian emperors called Francis in English), and his dominance on the football pitch. He is generally regarded as the greatest German footballer of all time and also as one of the greatest footballers in the history of the game.

He was a versatile player, who started out as midfielder but adapted to different roles on the pitch, and he is often credited as having invented the role of the modern sweeper or libero (SW).

Twice selected the European Footballer of the Year, he appeared 103 times for West Germany and played in three World Cups. He lifted the World Cup trophy as captain in 1974, and repeated the feat as a manager in 1990. With the club Bayern Munich, he won three consecutive European Cups from 1974 to 1976, and the Cup Winners' Cup in 1967. He went on to become coach and president of the institution. He is also a member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame.

In 1999, he was voted second place, behind Johan Cruijff in the European player of the Century election held by the IFFHS and he was voted third, behind Pelé and Johan Cruijff, in IFFHS' World Player of the Century election.

Today, Beckenbauer remains an influential figure in both German and international football. He led Germany's successful bid to host the 2006 World Cup and chaired the organizing committee.

Early life

Franz Beckenbauer was born in the post-war ruins of Munich, the second son of postal-worker Franz Beckenbauer senior and his wife Antonie. He grew up in the working-class district of Giesing and, despite his father's cynicism about the game, started playing football at the age of eight with the youth team of SC Munich '06 in 1954."

Originally a center forward, he idolised 1954 World Cup winner Fritz Walter and supported local side 1860 Munich, then the pre-eminent team in the city, despite their relegation from the top league, the Oberliga Süd, in the 1950s. ("It was always my dream to play for them" he would later confirm.) That he joined the FC Bayern Munich youth team in 1959, rather than that of his favourites 1860, was the result of a contentious Under-14 youth tournament in nearby Neubiberg. Beckenbauer and his team-mates were aware that their SC Munich '06 club lacked the finance to continue running its youth sides, and had determined to join 1860 as a group upon the tournament's conclusion. However, fortune decreed that SC Munich and 1860 would meet in the final and a series of niggles during the match eventually resulted in a physical confrontation between Beckenbauer and the opposing centre-half. The ill-feeling this engendered had a strong effect upon Beckenbauer and his team-mates, who decided to join FC Bayern's youth side rather than the team they had recently come to blows with.

In 1963, at the age of 18, Beckenbauer was engulfed in controversy when it was revealed that his then girlfriend was pregnant, and that he had no intention of marrying her. Given the conservative social values of the era, he was originally banned from the West German national youth team by the DFB, and only readmitted after some diplomatic wrangling from the side's coach Dettmar Cramer.

Club career

He made his debut with Bayern in the Regionalliga Süd ("Regional League South") on the left wing against FC St. Pauli on 6th June 1964. In only his first season in the regional league, 1964/65, the team won promotion to the recently formed Bundesliga, the national league.

Bayern soon became a force in the new German league, winning the German Cup in 1966-67 and achieving European success in the Cup Winners' Cup in 1967. Beckenbauer became team captain for the 1968-69 season and led his club to their first league title. He began experimenting with the sweeper ("libero") role around this time, refining the role into a new form and becoming perhaps the greatest exponent of the attacking sweeper game.

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1977 Cosmos Jersey

During Beckenbauer's tenure at Bayern Munich, the club won three league championships in a row from 1972 to 1974 and also an astonishing hat-trick of European Cup wins (1974-76) which earned the club the honour of keeping the trophy permanently.

In 1977 Beckenbauer accepted a lucrative contract to play in the North American Soccer League with the New York Cosmos. He played with the Cosmos for four seasons up to 1980, and the team won the Soccer Bowl on three occasions (77, 78, 80).

Beckenbauer retired after a two-year spell with Hamburger SV in Germany (1980-82) with the win of the Bundesliga title that year and one final season with the New York Cosmos in 1983. In his career in domestic leagues, he made 587 appearances and scored 81 goals.

National team

Beckenbauer won 103 caps and scored 14 goals for West Germany. He was a member of the World Cup squads that finished runners-up in 1966, third place in 1970, and champions in 1974. Beckenbauer's first game for the national team came on September 26, 1965.

1966 World Cup

Beckenbauer appeared in his first World Cup in 1966, playing every match. In his first ever World Cup match, against Switzerland, he scored twice on a 5-0 win. West Germany won its group, and then beat Uruguay 4-0 in quarterfinals, with Beckenbauer scoring the second goal at the 70th minute. In semifinals, the Germans faced the Soviet Union. Helmut Haller opened the score, and then Beckenbauer scored the 2-0, his fourth goal of the tournament. The Soviets scored a late goal but were unable to equalize, and West Germany advanced to the final against hosts England. The English won the match and the Jules Rimet Trophy in overtime, gaining the lead through a controversial goal. The Germans fell short of the title, but Beckenbauer had a notable tournament, finishing tied for third on the list of top scorers—from a non-attacking position. The team returned to a heroes' welcome in Germany.

1970 World Cup

West Germany won its first three matches before facing England in second round on a rematch of the 1966 final. The English were ahead 2-0 in the second half, but a spectacular goal by Beckenbauer in the 69th minute helped the Germans recover and equalize before the end of regulation, and win the match on extra time. West Germany advanced to the semi-finals to face Italy, in what would be known as the Game of the Century. Despite getting his clavicle fractured after being fouled, he was not deterred from continuing the match, as his side had already used up their maximum two substitutions. He remarkably stayed on the field carrying his dislocated arm in a sling. The result of this match was 4-3 (after extra time) in favour of the Italians. Germany defeated Uruguay 1-0 for third place.

1974 World Cup

The 1974 World Cup was hosted by West Germany and Beckenbauer led his side to victory, including a hardfought 2-1 win over the hotly favoured Netherlands side featuring Johan Cruyff. Beckenbauer became the first captain to lift the brand new FIFA World Cup Trophy after Brazil had retained the Jules Rimet Trophy in 1970. This also gave West Germany the distinction of being the only national team at the time to hold both the Euro and World Cup titles simultaneously; France also accomplished this feat in 2000.

European Championships

Beckenbauer became captain of the national side in 1971. In 1972 West Germany won the European Championship, beating the Soviet Union 3-0 in the final. In 1976, West Germany lost the European Championship in the final.

Managerial career

On his return to Germany, Beckenbauer was appointed manager of the West German national team to replace Jupp Derwall. He took the team all the way to the final of the 1986 World Cup, where they lost to Argentina.

In 1990, before the German reunification, Beckenbauer managed the last Germany team without East German players in a World Cup, winning the final 1-0, against Argentina, in a rematch of the previous World Cup final. Beckenbauer is one of two men (with Mario Zagallo) to have won the Cup as player and as coach, and he is the only man to have won the title as team captain as well as coach.

Beckenbauer then moved into club management, and accepted a job with Olympique Marseille in 1990 but left them the following year.

From 28 December 1993 until 30 June 1994, and then from 29 April 1996 until 30 June of the same year, he coached Bayern Munich. His brief spells in charge saw him collect two further honours - the Bundesliga title in 1994 and the UEFA Cup in 1996.

In 1994 he had taken on the role of club president at Bayern, and much of the Munich giants' success in the following years has been credited to his astute management. Following the club's decision to change from an association to a limited company, he has been chairman of the advisory board since the beginning of 2002.

In 1998 he became vice-president of the DFB. At the end of the 1990s, Beckenbauer headed the successful bid by Germany to organize the FIFA World Cup 2006. He chaired the organizational committee for the World Cup and was a commentator for the Bild-Zeitung.

Personal life

Beckenbauer has been married three times and once had an affair with a woman who worked at a Bayern shop

Trivia

Nickname Der Kaiser

Since 1968, Beckenbauer has been called der Kaiser by fans and the media. The following anecdote is told (even by Beckenbauer himself) to explain the origin: On the occasion of a friendly game of Bayern Munich in Vienna, Beckenbauer posed for a photo session right beside a bust of the former Austrian emperor Franz Joseph I. The media called him Fußball-Kaiser (football-emperor) afterwards, and soon he was called just Kaiser.

According to a report in the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag this explanation is untrue, though very popular. According to the report, Beckenbauer fouled his opposite number, Reinhard Libuda from Schalke 04, in the cup finale on the June 14, 1969. Disregarding the fans' hooting, Beckenbauer took the ball into the opposite part of the field, where he balanced the ball in front of the upset fans for half a minute. Libuda was commonly called König von Westfalen (king of Westphalia), so the press looked for an even more exalted moniker and invented der Kaiser.

Other trivia notes

• Beckenbauer's digital image was reproduced for Adidas's José+10 football advertisement. The ad shows a young-looking Beckenbauer from the 1970s playing with contemporary players like Zinedine Zidane, David Beckham, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Kaká, Jermain Defoe, Oliver Kahn, Michael Ballack, Juan Román Riquelme, Arjen Robben, Lukas Podolski, Raul Gonzalez, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Djibril Cissé. The ad shows Beckenbauer wearing the West German 1974 World Cup jersey which he wore number 5. This is the same jersey he is wearing when he was the first player to hoist the FIFA World Cup Trophy. The ad also digitally reproduces the image of French great Michel Platini.
• He is featured in the game FIFA Street 2 as the player with the highest stats.
• He appears in FIFA 07 in the Classic XI team as Sweeper, with his stats at 94 Overall, making him the best player in the game. (Wayne Rooney is 92 Overall)
• In the "Pro Evolution Soccer" games, he appears in the Classic Germany team with a false name, in the game Beckenbauer has great stats, with a lot of defense and attack.
• While playing with the youth team of SC Munich 1906 Beckenbauer was a supporter of the Bayern Munich city rival 1860 Munich and intended to join the club in 1958. But after a game with his youth team a player of 1860 Munich slapped him in his face. Upset about this he changed his plans and instead of joining the "Blues", which had been the more popular team at this time in Munich, Beckenbauer joined the "Reds".

• After appearing in an ad for a big mobile phone company, Beckenbauer specifically requested the number 0176 / 666666 for his mobile phone. However, he soon was flooded with phone calls by men who thought it was a phone sex number (in German, "6" translates to "sechs", very close to the word sex).

• When he was age 8, he saw the 1954 Switzerland World Cup final match, which Germany won and became world champion, and said to his mother: "I'll be the winner of that final match when I become an adult football player." He really became a champion of 1974 World Cup after 20 years.

• Beckenbauer is mentioned in Monty Python's sketch "The Philosophers' Football Match" as being a surprise addition to the German team. However, instead of actually playing football all the "players" walk in circles thinking, much to the confusion of Beckenbauer.

Quotations

• "He (Johan Cruijff) was the better player, but I won the World Cup" — Franz Beckenbauer
• On being asked who is the greatest player ever... "Pelé was the best, but after him comes Johan Cruijff. He is the best player Europe ever produced" — Franz Beckenbauer
• "The strong one doesn't win, the one who wins is strong" — Franz Beckenbauer

Honours

Club

Bayern Munich

• Bundesliga - 1969, 1972, 1973, 1974
• DFB Cup (German Cup) - 1966, 1967, 1969, 1971
• European Cup - 1974, 1975, 1976
• UEFA Cup Winners' Cup - 1967
• Intercontinental Cup - 1976

Hamburger SV

• Bundesliga - 1982

New York Cosmos

• NASL Championship - 1977, 1978, 1980

International

• FIFA World Cup - 1974
• EURO 72 - 1972

Managerial

• FIFA World Cup - 1990
• Bundesliga - 1994
• UEFA Cup - 1996

Club career statistics

All-Time Club Performance

Club	Season	Bundesliga		DFB Cup		European Competition		Total
		App	Goals	App	Goals	App	Goals	App	Goals
Bayern Munich	1965-66	33	4			0	0
	1966-67	33	0			9	0
	1967-68	28	4			7	1
	1968-69	33	2			0	0
	1969-70	34	6			2	0
	1970-71	33	3			8	1
	1971-72	34	6			7	0
	1972-73	34	4			6	1
	1973-74	33	1			10	1
	1974-75	34	5			7	1
	1975-76	33	3			9	0
Total		362	38			65	5
New York Cosmos	1977	21	5	-	-	-	-	21	5
	1978	33	10	-	-	-	-	33	10
	1979	18	1	-	-	-	-	18	1
	1980	33	5	-	-	-	-	33	5
Total		105	21	-	-	-	-
Hamburger SV	1980-81	18	0			0	0
	1981-82	10	0			5	0
Total		28	0			5	0
New York Cosmos	1983	27	2	-	-	-	-	27	2
Total		27	2
Combined Total		132	23
Career Totals		522	61			70	5	592	66

See also

• List of UEFA Cup winning managers

External links

• Franz Beckenbauer Foundation (German)
• Facts on Beckenbauer (German)
• Portrait of Franz Beckenbauer (English)
• Unofficial career stats