The defining figure of world football was 78 years old.
According to the German sports federation, Beckenbauer, who was a player in 1974 and a world champion in 1990, died on Sunday.
It is with deep pain that we inform you that my husband and our father, Franz Beckenbauer, passed away peacefully on Sunday, surrounded by his family, the legendary football player's family announced on Monday, and at the same time requested that his mourning be respected.
Born in Munich in 1945, Beckenbauer's career was unparalleled, and he also defined the development of football as a player, transforming the sweeper position in the 1960s and 70s with his elegant style and leadership personality.
He achieved his first major international success with his club, Bayern Munich, when he won the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1967.
However, the peak of his career fell in the mid-1970s: between 1974 and 1976, he triumphed three times in a row in the BEK with the Bavarian star team. In the same period, the national team of East Germany also experienced its golden age, thanks to his world-class performance, among other things: in 1966, he won a silver medal, in 1970, a bronze medalist at the World Championship, and in 1974, Beckenbauer was able to raise the most valuable football trophy in front of the home crowd as team captain.
The legendary football player, known by the nickname Császár, was also the European champion in 1972 with the West German national team, which only lost in the final four years later in the continental competition. Beckenbauer, who was capped 103 times between 1965 and 1977 and scored 14 goals in a shirt with the crest, was also recognized individually: in 1972 and 1976, he was awarded the Ballon d'Or.
In the last years of his playing career, he played for the New York Cosmos, where he played together with one of the greatest football players of all time, the Brazilian Pele, and spent two seasons playing for Hamburger SV, with which he won the fifth title after his four championships in Munich. He scored 44 goals in 424 appearances in the Bundesliga.
One year after his retirement in 1983, he took over the management of the West German national team, with which he lost to Argentina in the World Cup final in 1986, but four years later he led the national team to victory in the "rematch".
Thus, after the Brazilian Mario Zagallo, who passed away on Friday, he was the second person to say that he became a world champion both as a player and as a professional manager, and between the two, he won a bronze medal at the European Championships in 1988.
After finishing his work as the national team captain after the World Cup title, he was the club president of Bayern between 1994 and 2009, and sat on the bench twice in the 1990s, with the Bavarians celebrating a league title in 1994 and a UEFA Cup victory in 1996.
Beckenbauer was the main organizer of the 2006 World Cup in Germany, but his reputation was tarnished by unclear and dubious payments to the organizing committee.
MTI
Cover photo: Franz Beckenbauer
Source: maltatoday.com
