Der Kaiser

Keir Radnedge pays tribute to Germany's greatest-ever player, Franz Beckenbauer

“Great” is an overused word in the football world, but it is most appropriate for Franz Beckenbauer whose death followed so hard upon those of World Cup rivals Sir Bobby Charlton and Mario Zagallo.

Beckenbauer, who died at 78 after several years of failing health, stands without peer as not only the greatest German player of all time – and possibly the greatest German sportsman – but one of the greatest footballers in the history of the game. He made up a remarkable triumvirate, with Zagallo and Didier Deschamps, who won the World Cup as player and coach. He and Deschamps were both captains, too.

Gunter Netzer, Beckenbauer’s European Championship-winning team-mate in1972, led the multitude of tributes by saying: “There was no better football player than Franz Beckenbauer in the past and there will be no better in the future.”

Beckenbauer, born and raised in the southern Munich suburb of Giesing on September11,1945, built his reputation with Bayern Munich before enjoying a four-year American adventure with the New York Cosmos before one last, brief Bundesliga hurrah with Hamburg.

He won103 caps, the World Cup, European Championship, Intercontinental Cup, three European Cups, a European Cup Winners’ Cup, five Bundesliga titles plus four German Cups and three North American Soccer League Superbowls. He was voted European Footballer of the Year twice and Germany’s number one on four occasions plus his nation’s footballer of the century. As a manager, he led West Germany to the1990 World Cup and Bayern to the Bundesliga title and UEFA Cup.