Franz Beckenbauer, a World Cup-winning player and coach who became a defining figure in German football for more than half a century, died on Sunday. It was 78.
He died at home, his family confirmed in a statement. The statement did not say where he lived or give a cause of death. His relatives had previously told German media that he was suffering from ill health.
Known throughout an illustrious, trophy-laden career as ‘Der Kaiser’, Beckenbauer had withdrawn from public view in recent years, battered by the death of one of his five children, Stephan, from a brain tumor in 2015 and a heart attack. bypass. operation next year.
Before then he was a totemic, magnetic presence in both German football and German public life. He was a player, a champion of unusual balance and elegance. He was a coach, showing a deft touch and an easy way with his players. And he was an executive, appearing to be a skilled diplomat and a consummate networker.
Mostly, though, Beckenbauer was a winner. He relentlessly beat Bayern Munich, the club he joined as a teenager and with whom he became so associated that Uli Hoeness, its long-time chairman, called him the “greatest personality” in its history.
Over 14 years with the club, Beckenbauer lifted four German league titles, four German cups, three European cups and one Intercontinental Cup, the precursor to the Club World Cup. He was twice elected as the Ballon d’Or, the prestigious award given by France Football magazine to the European player of the year, the only defender ever to win it more than once. He went on to claim three more titles during a career-autumn spell with the New York Cosmos.
Even more remarkably, he also won with his national team. Beckenbauer helped lead West Germany to the 1966 World Cup final, losing in extra time to hosts England in a game he felt he was “too young” to make an impact on, as he put it. Four years later, he was part of the West German team that lost to Italy in a thrilling semi-final dubbed the ‘Game of the Century’.
In 1974 — two years after winning the European Championship — he finally reached the game’s global summit, leading West Germany to a 2-1 victory against the Netherlands at home in Munich. As captain, Beckenbauer became the first player to lift the current incarnation of the World Cup trophy.
He would meet it again 16 years later. Beckenbauer had, somewhat reluctantly, agreed to coach the West German national team in 1984, agreeing to take the job only because he felt what he later described as a “moral obligation”.
He reached the World Cup final two years later – losing 3-2 to Diego Maradona and Argentina – and then got his revenge in 1990, beating the same opposition by a single goal in Rome in the final. In doing so, Beckenbauer secured his place in an exclusive group of just three men, joining Brazil’s Mário Zagallo (who died last week) and ahead of France’s Didier Deschamps, who has won the World Cup and as a player and as a coach.
Even after his immediate involvement with football, on the field, had come to an end, he kept winning. Beckenbauer was at the forefront of a reunified Germany’s bid to host the 2006 World Cup. The success of the bid, as well as the eventual success of the tournament, led him to define this World Cup as the one that meant the most to him personally.
It also came to tarnish his legacy. Throughout his career his private life and conduct as an executive led to reputational damage and more than one brush with the law: Both his tax affairs and his romantic life attracted scrutiny and, in of the first, seven-figure fines.
“He did everything a German shouldn’t do,” his former teammate Paul Breitner once said. “He got divorced, left his kids, took off with his girlfriend, got into trouble with the IRS, left his girlfriend again. But he is forgiven for everything because he has a good heart, is a positive person and is always ready to help. He doesn’t hide his weaknesses, he doesn’t sweep his mistakes under the carpet.”
However, allegations of corruption in the 2006 World Cup bidding process were not so easily forgiven. A decade after his role as star player for that tournament, Beckenbauer avoided criminal conviction in Switzerland, home of soccer’s governing body FIFA, only when a trial was abandoned shortly before the verdict was reached because of a Swiss rule about the time he had elapsed since the crimes were allegedly committed.
He has always denied the charges. “We didn’t want to bribe anyone and we didn’t bribe anyone,” he wrote in a column for the German newspaper Bild in 2016.
That trial came just a few years after Beckenbauer was involved in the tainted FIFA vote that led to the 2018 and 2022 tournaments being awarded to Russia and Qatar. Beckenbauer was among the officials charged with wrongdoing.
Franz Anton Beckenbauer was born in September 1945 to Franz and Antonie Beckenbauer in Giesing, a working-class suburb of Munich, near what would become the site of the city’s Olympic Stadium. His father was a postal worker. Franz was recognized as a player of rare talent as a child by both of the city’s professional teams, 1860 Munich and Bayern Munich.
His decision to play for Bayern became the moment that decided the team’s fate. Without Beckenbauer, Bayern “would never have become the club it is today,” as one statement from this perennial German champion put it.
Originally a midfielder, Beckenbauer spent most of his career as a ‘libero’, essentially a deep sweeper who was given permission to roam forward and initiate attacks whenever the opportunity presented itself.
“For me, he was the best player in the history of Germany,” said the country’s current national team coach, Julian Nagelsmann. “His interpretation of the libero role changed the game. This role and his friendship with the ball made him a free man. Franz Beckenbauer was able to float on the grass. As a footballer, and later also as a coach, he was excellent. He stood on top of things.”
Beckenbauer made more than 500 appearances for Bayern — and another 103 for West Germany — before announcing his decision to leave the country to join the Cosmos in 1977. It was a decision that cost him his place at the 1978 World Cup. , when the German Football Association decided that it would not select players working outside of Europe.
He didn’t regret it. He would later describe his years with the Cosmos – where he counted Pele among his teammates – as the best of his life.
In Munich, he said, he could not go out to eat without “the papers mentioning my main course”. New York cosmopolitanism, by contrast, offered a degree of freedom. “In Munich, we were all German players,” he said. “In Cosmos there were 14 nationalities and Pele”.
However, anonymity was only relative. One night, Beckenbauer dined with Ahmet Ertegun, the founder of Atlantic Records and the driving force behind Cosmos, on Second Avenue. Beckenbauer tracked down Woody Allen and asked the well-connected Mr. Ertegun to introduce him.
As Gavin Newsham describes in his 2006 book Once In A Lifetime, his Cosmos story, the impresario duly obliged, heading to the restaurant with Beckenbauer following, uncharacteristically shy. As they reached the manager’s table, however, before Mr. Ertegun could speak, Mr. Allen quickly stood up, a look of disbelief on his face. “My God, Franz Beckenbauer,” he said.
Beckenbauer is survived by his wife, Heidrun, known as Heidi, and their two children, Joel and Francesca, as well as two children from his previous marriages, Thomas and Michael.
Melissa Eddy and Tariq Panja contributed to the report.
