Legendary champions are not immortal. And with the passage of time, the idols in studs from the 1970s who thrilled tens of millions of fans across the planet are disappearing. After the Dutchman Johan Cruyff, who died in 2016, then the Brazilian Pelé in December 2022, it is the turn of the German Franz Beckenbauer, the third greatest player of this blessed footballing period, to leave the field for good. The double world champion (as a player in 1974 then as a coach in 1990) died on Monday January 8, at the age of 78.
For a footballer to become a legend, it is generally preferable that he was a striker, preferably a prolific scorer. This was not the case for Franz Beckenbauer who, after starting out in midfield, will be positioned in central defense. But not in the shoes of the Italian-style “lockers” fashionable during the late 1960s, rather in that of a libero, capable of directing the game, energizing the restarts and cutting the opposing lines thanks to a technique individual and with an exceptional quality of pass.
The German did not invent this position of defender free to move forward, he magnified it, whether in the red jersey of Bayern or the white of the West German selection. Before him, other players, such as the Belgian Laurent Verbiest (Anderlecht) or the Serbian Velibor Vasovic (Ajax Amsterdam) in particular, had given their credentials to the position of libero. Beckenbauer, for his part, has never hidden his admiration for the Italian Giacinto Facchetti, defender of Inter Milan, adept at frequent offensive breakthroughs.
Whatever the case, those who had the chance to see the Bavarian, born in Munich in September 1945, always evoke the elegance that emanated from Franz Beckenbauer with the ball at his feet: chest straight, head held high, Phenomenal game vision. An elegance sometimes rhymes with a certain arrogance. But an elegance that was not gratuitous, because it was put at the service of the most clinical effectiveness.
“The Emperor is dead”
His characteristic style partly explains the famous nickname that sticks to him. On August 3, 1971, during a friendly match in Vienna, Austria, press photographers asked the young prodigy to pose in front of a bust of Emperor Franz Joseph of Habsburg – the Kaiser Franz Joseph, in German. The legend is in progress: Beckenbauer will therefore be, and forever, the Kaiser. “The Emperor is dead”headlined the popular daily Bildupon the announcement of his death, Monday afternoon.
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