German World Cup hero and revolutionary Franz Beckenbauer dies aged 78

German World Cup hero and revolutionary Franz Beckenbauer dies aged 78
  • PublishedJanuary 10, 2024

Beckenbauer’s death was first announced by his family to German news agency DPA and then confirmed by the German football federation, the DFB.

“It is with deep sadness that we announce that my husband and our father, Franz Beckenbauer, passed away peacefully in his sleep yesterday, Sunday, surrounded by his family,” the family said in its statement.

“We ask that we be allowed to grieve in peace and be spared any questions.”

The statement did not provide a cause of death.

The former Bayern Munich great, who became affectionately known as the ‘Kaiser’ had struggled with health problems in recent years.

“The world of FC Bayern is no longer the way it used to be – suddenly darker, quieter, poorer,” Bayern Munich said on its website. 

Beckenbauer is seen as re-imagining the defender’s role in football and captained West Germany to the World Cup title in 1974.

He was the coach when West Germany won the tournament again in 1990. 

Franz Beckenbauer looks on in a stadium
Franz Beckenbauer was at the helm of West Germany in 1990 as his side won the World Cup at the Olympico in Rome.(Getty Images: Franco Origlia)

“The ‘Kaiser’ was one of the best players our sport has ever seen,” DFB president Bernd Neuendorf said.

“With his lightness, his elegance and his vision, he set standards on the field … Franz Beckenbauer leaves a great legacy for the federation and soccer as a whole.”

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Beckenbauer “inspired generations of enthusiasm for German football. We will miss him.”

Beckenbauer’s death comes just two days after the announcement of Mario Zagallo’s death at the age of 92.

Zagallo is the only other person to achieve World Cup wins as player and coach, other than France’s Didier Deschamps.

Beckenbauer was also instrumental in bringing the highly successful 2006 World Cup to Germany, though charges later alleged he only succeeded in winning the hosting rights with the help of bribery.

He denied the allegations.

“We did not want to bribe anyone and we didn’t bribe anyone,” Beckenbauer, who headed the World Cup organising committee, said in 2016.

Beckenbauer and three other members of the committee were formally made criminal suspects that year by Swiss prosecutors who suspected fraud, but he was never indicted due to health reasons and the case ended without judgement in 2020. 

Beckenbauer was also briefly suspended by FIFA’s ethics committee in 2014, for failing to cooperate with prosecutor Michael Garcia’s probe of alleged corruption in the 2018 and 2022 World Cup votes.

The suspension was lifted during the 2014 World Cup in Brazil when he agreed to cooperate.

‘Football to me was a deliverance’

Franz Beckenbauer holds the World Cup
Franz Beckenbauer (2nd from left) won the 1974 World Cup.(Getty Images: picture alliance/Werner Baum)

Beckenbauer was the  son of a post official from the working-class Munich district of Giesing.

Born months after Germany’s surrender in World War II, Beckenbauer studied to become an insurance salesman but he signed his first professional contract with Bayern when he was 18.

“You are not born to become a world star in Giesing,” he told the Sueddeutsche newspaper magazine in 2010.

“Football for me was a deliverance.

“Looking back, I can say: Everything went according to how I’d imagined my life. I had a perfect life.” 

Beckenbauer is maybe best known for personalising the position of “libero,” the free-roaming nominal defender who often moved forward to threaten the opponent’s goal.

The role is now virtually disappeared from modern football and was rarely seen before his time.

Franz Beckenbauer defends against Bobby Charlton
Franz Beckenbauer re-defined the role of a libero defender throughout the 70s.(AP Photo: File)

Although he had never coached before, Beckenbauer was hired to revive West Germany’s fortunes in 1984 after a flop at the European Championship.

West Germany made it to the final of the 1986 World Cup, losing to Diego Maradona’s Argentina in Mexico City.

Although West Germany failed to win the 1988 Euros title on home soil, it went to the final of the 1990 World Cup and defeated Argentina in the final in Rome, another highlight in the year after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The penalty goal came from Andreas Brehme, a defender Beckenbauer had once told to “play the piano, play the flute but not football.”

While his team celebrated, Beckenbauer, who retired from the role after the tournament, cut a lonely figure walking and reflecting at the Olympic Stadium.

Later, at the news conference, he said he was “sorry for the rest of the world” because a united Germany would be unbeatable for years to come.

That 1990 tournament was the last West Germany played before reunification, however, Germany had to wait 24 years before winning another World Cup title.

SOURCE: ABCNEWS

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