Franz Beckenbauer

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

Twice named European Footballer of the Year, Beckenbauer appeared 103 times for West Germany, playing in three FIFA World Cups and two European Championships. He is one of eleven players to have won the FIFA World Cup, the European Cup, and the Ballon d'Or. He is one of three men, along with Brazil's Mário Zagallo and France's Didier Deschamps, to have won the World Cup as a player and as a manager; he lifted the World Cup trophy as captain in 1974, and repeated the feat as a manager in 1990. He was the first captain to lift the World Cup and European Championship at the international level and the European Cup at the club level. He was named in the World Team of the 20th Century in 1998, the FIFA World Cup Dream Team in 2002, the Ballon d'Or Dream Team in 2020, and the IFFHS All-time Men's Dream Team in 2021, and in 2004 was listed in the FIFA 100 of the world's greatest living players. In August 2024, the International Sports Press Association (AIPS) voted him as the third best footballer of the past 100 years after Pelé and Diego Maradona. At club level with Bayern Munich, Beckenbauer won the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1967 and three consecutive European Cups from 1974 to 1976. The latter feat made him the first player to win three European Cups as captain of his club. He became team manager and later president of Bayern Munich. After two spells with the New York Cosmos he was inducted into the US National Soccer Hall of Fame. Beckenbauer led Germany's successful bid to host the 2006 FIFA World Cup and chaired the organizing committee. He worked as a pundit for Sky Germany, and for 34 years as a columnist for the tabloid Bild, both until 2016. Beginning August 2016, he was investigated for fraud and money laundering in connection with the 2006 World Cup. The investigation was closed without a verdict in 2020 as the period for bringing a charge under the statute of limitations had expired.

In Their Own Story

In the 1970 World Cup quarter-final against England, a rematch of the 1966 final, West Germany trailed 2–0 in the second half. Then Beckenbauer scored a spectacular goal in the 69th minute that helped the Germans recover and equalise before the end of normal time, winning the match in extra time. In the semi-final against Italy—the Game of the Century—he dislocated his shoulder after being fouled but stayed on the field carrying his dislocated arm in a sling because his side had already used their two permitted substitutions. The match ended 4–3 after extra time in favour of the Italians. Beckenbauer later captained West Germany to victory in the 1974 World Cup on home soil, including a hard-fought 2–1 win over the hotly favoured Netherlands in the final. He repeated the feat as a manager in 1990, becoming one of three men to win the World Cup as a player and as a manager.

Reader's Guide

Beckenbauer made his debut with Bayern in a Bundesliga promotion play-off match on the left wing against FC St. Pauli on 6 June 1964. In his first season in the Regionalliga Süd ("Regional League South", then the second level in Germany), 1964–65, the team won the league and was eventually promoted to the Bundesliga. 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. During Beckenbauer's tenure at Bayern Munich, the club won three league championships in a row from 1972 to 1974 and also a hat-trick of European Cup wins (1974–76) which earned the club the honour of keeping the trophy permanently. Beginning in 1968, Beckenbauer was called "der Kaiser" ('the Emperor') by fans and the media. The following anecdote is told (even during his lifetime by Beckenbauer himself) to explain the origin: On the occasion of a friendly game of Bayern Munich in Vienna, Austria, 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 just called der 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 final on 14 June 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. In 1977, Beckenbauer accepted a lucrative contract to play in the North American Soccer League (NASL) with the New York Cosmos, playing alongside Pelé in his debut season. He played with the Cosmos for four seasons up to 1980, and the team won the Soccer Bowl on three occasions (1977, 1978, 1980). Beckenbauer retired after a two-year spell with Hamburger SV in Germany

Did You Know?

• Beckenbauer is one of eleven players to have won the FIFA World Cup, the European Cup, and the Ballon d'Or.
• He is one of three men, along with Brazil's Mário Zagallo and France's Didier Deschamps, to have won the World Cup as a player and as a manager.
• Beckenbauer made his debut with Bayern in a Bundesliga promotion play-off match on the left wing against FC St. Pauli on 6 June 1964.
• He won the World Cup as a player in 1974 and as a manager in 1990.