When the “King” died in March 2016, the “Emperor” tweeted: “I am shocked. Johan Cruyff was not only a very good friend to me, but also a brother.” The world’s two best footballers play in the Netherlands and Germany in 1974: Johan Cruyff and Franz Beckenbauer meet in the 1974 World Cup final in Munich. It is the “World Cup of Geniuses” and they are the protagonists in a world that television is breathing color into around 30 years after the end of the Second World War and that is in transition.
A new, self-confident generation appears on the stage and demands their rights. Even before the tournament, the DFB team is haggling over the amount of the victory bonus; politicians have not yet discovered football. The players are pushing for more democracy in the association and more modernity; old NSDAP members are still in charge at the DFB. So when the world changes, Germany becomes world champion. And Franz Beckenbauer lifts the trophy. This almost didn’t happen for several reasons. Only shortly before the start of the tournament did the DFB and the national team agree on the amount of any bonuses.
This is where the excerpt from the book “The World Cup of Geniuses” by Dietrich Schulze-Marmeling and Hubert Dahlkamp, published by Die Workshop at the end of 2023, begins:
The Dutch also have heated arguments about money. And their participation is also in jeopardy a few days before the tournament kicks off. The amateurism of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Voetbal Bonds (KNVB) has its last refuge in the national team, the Elftal. While professionalism has long since taken hold at the big clubs Ajax and Feyenoord, the association continues to treat its national players like minors who do not need to be adequately compensated.
A new generation is emerging
For a long time, players only received a paltry 200 guilders per appearance and were not even insured against the consequences of injuries. Superstar Johan Cruyff and his father-in-law and advisor Cor Coster accuse the association leaders of being “amateurs” who are responsible for the fact that the World Cup has taken place without the Netherlands since 1938.
Dietrich Schulze-Marmeling, born in 1956, is one of the most renowned football authors in the German language. He has published numerous books, including “Tamed Football”, chronicles of Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund as well as works about George Best, FC Barcelona, Manchester United, Celtic Glasgow and Liverpool FC. Schulze-Marmeling is a member of the German Academy for Football Culture and was co-initiator of #BoycotQatar2022. His current work is called: “1974: The World Cup of Geniuses”.
The KNVB has made a jersey deal with Adidas, which the players only find out about when they receive the item of clothing in their hands. The players, especially Johan Cruyff, who is under contract with Puma, feel ignored. Cruyff: “They thought they didn’t have to talk to us, the jersey would be theirs. But the head sticking out of the top is still mine.” At the World Cup, Cruyff will not appear with the famous three stripes on his jersey like his colleagues, but only with two.
On June 10, 1974, two days before leaving for the team’s headquarters, Cruyff explained to the KNVB that the team would stay at home if the bonuses were not significantly increased. The association’s offer is ridiculous. The association hastily promises each player retroactive bonuses of up to 65,000 guilders.
The Beckenbauer/Cruyff generation registers the difference between idealism and fraud, between honor and exploitation, between honesty and hypocrisy. When Cruyff is told by his counterpart during negotiations that money isn’t that important after all, he responds with his usual quick-wittedness: If money isn’t important, then he could give him all his money! This generation can no longer be conquered with slogans that appeal to duty and honor alone. It is the first generation to break away from dull national concepts of honor – in Germany and the Netherlands.
1963: Beckenbauer declared persona non grata
On September 16, 1965, Franz Beckenbauer, who had only been 20 for a few days, celebrated his debut in the national jersey. Beckenbauer represents a revolution on the pitch: The “last” man is now a game designer, as journalist Thomas Hüetlin describes the “Kaiser’s” game as a “free man who directs the game like a general”. Beckenbauer: “I wanted to influence the entire game, defend, build up, score goals.” The DFB officials came close to spurning the gifted man.
Beckenbauer before his debut for the national team.
(Photo: imago/Sven Simon)
On October 20, 1963, the 18-year-old Beckenbauer became the father of an illegitimate child, which is why association officials declared him persona non grata because of his “immoral lifestyle.” Beckenbauer was left out of the squad for a DFB youth selection game, but Dettmar Cramer, responsible for the DFB youth team, and current national coach Sepp Herberger successfully lodged an appeal.
Beckenbauer later wrote about his national team debut on September 16, 1965 in Stockholm and his predecessor Fritz Walter, captain of the German national team in the “Miracle of Bern” in 1954: “I noticed that we were quite different characters. Maybe our style of play was similar Technology each other; but he still had something of the team spirit of 1954; he believed in camaraderie and national honor. For me, a football team is a community of interests. Titles are there to be won. For me that is not just a sporting goal, but also an economic necessity.”
And about the dressing room ritual of his older colleagues in DFB uniform: “Was I in Stockholm’s Rasunda Stadium, or was I in a theater? Should football be played afterwards, as far as I’m concerned, for Germany and the ambassador, for Uwe and Schimmi, also for Nice and Cramer, but especially for me, or should a theater be performed?”
Breitner complains about disruptive national anthem
Günter Netzer and Paul Breitner follow up later. “Forget all the fuss with the eleven friends on the football field, that’s crazy,” Netzer sneers and explains to Bild am Sonntag: “Comradeship – it doesn’t exist in professional football anymore.” Paul Breitner is no less clear: “‘You have to be eleven friends…’ – a fantasy, complete nonsense. This is a sentence that was never justified at any time. This sentence is simply a lie!”
Everyone plays for themselves on the pitch, including in the national team. Consequently, you won’t see a single player singing along at the tournament when the national anthem is played before kickoff. You look at the area, bored or even tormented. Breitner even complains: “This anthem before the international matches is disturbing my concentration!” He would even market his ass if necessary.
The professionals’ emphatically individualistic and hedonistic attitude fits with the political landscape of the Federal Republic, where the initial euphoria of the social-liberal reform policy has given way to a certain disillusionment and instead of the visionary Willy Brandt, the “doer” Helmut Schmidt now rules (who was not interested in football anyway). But this attitude is not well received in the media and among viewers.
Cruyff is the consummate professional
While in Germany players like Beckenbauer, Breitner, Hoeneß and Netzer personify this change, in the neighboring country it is primarily Johan Cruyff. “The Dutch are at their best when they combine system with creative individualism. Johan Cruyff is the most important representative of this combination. He shaped the country after the war. He was the only one who really understood the 1960s,” writes former Hubert Smeets Editor-in-chief of the weekly magazine De Groene Amsterdamer. Arie Haan, Cruyff’s teammate at Ajax and in the Elftal, is still grateful to the “King” many years later:
“Our generation owes everything to ‘Cruyffie’, the most perfect professional. He not only revolutionized Dutch football, but also changed the mentality of officials. Today we reap what he achieved every day.”