Born: 11 September 1945. Munich, West Germany

International Caps :   103 
International Goals :  14 
Teams :  SC Munich 1906, Bayern M., New York Cosmos, SV Hamburg 
Team Honours :  World Cup 1974
European Championship :  1972
European Cup :   1974, 75, 76
Cup Winners  Cup :   1967
World Club Championship :   1976
Bundesliga :  1969, 72, 73, 74, 82
West German Cup :  1966, 67, 69, 71. 
Individual Honours : European Footballer of the Year: 1972, 76 



Franz Beckenbauer  is the only man to have won the  World Cup both as a player and as  a  manager. His roll  of  honour  is  unique. Captain  of   West  Germany  when  they  won the  World  Cup  and  the  European  Championship,  he  also  led  his  club,  Bayern Munich, to  three  successive  European  Cups  and  also  to  the  European  Cup  Winners'  Cup.
But it is not just for the medals  and  trophies that Beckenbauer is remembered. Rather it is for the style and the genius. Every movement he made on the pitch  bristled  with elegance.
There  was  an  arrogance  in  his  play  that  suggested  he  was  always  in  command - " Emperor  Franz " and " The Kaiser "  they called  him. But more than that, he  was a  great thinker   about   the  game   and   brought   about  a  revolution in  the  way  it  is  played   by inventing  the  role  of  the  attacking  sweeper.

Those powerful  long runs out of central defence had never been seen before. Up to then, no one had thought that a sweeper had any job being in his opponents' half of the field, let alone scoring. Beckenbauer both created and bequeathed this tactic to the  modern  game. It contained the element of surprise and it became his trademark. 

Franz  was  born amid the ruins of post-war Germany on September 11, 1945, in Munich. He  joined  the youth team at  Bayern  when he was 14 and  three  years  later  gave  up  his job as a trainee insurance salesman to become a professional footballer.

At that time, Bayern were one of West Germany's less fashionable clubs and didn't merit a place in the Bundesliga when it was formed  in 1963. But  they  were  soon  promoted and when Beckenbauer  made  his  debut  in  1964  it  was  as  an outside-left.
He was soon switched into midfield and within a year he had made his debut for West Germany. The match - a test of nerve for even  experienced  internationals, let  alone  a  fledgling  20-year-old - was  a  crucial  World Cup  qualifier  away  to  Sweden. Beckenbauer, however, demonstrated  that  coolness  of  temperament for which he was to become  famous as  West Germany won 2-1 and qualified for the 1966  World Cup to be played in  England.
Little could Beckenbauer have realised that the competition was to herald the start of a series of epic battles between England and West Germany.

In  the  opening matches, Beckenbauer  gave  a  glimpse  of  what was to come by gliding through for two goals as the Germans demolished Switzerland 5-0. They drew 0-0 with Argentina then beat Spain 2-1 to reach the quarter-finals.  That  match  was  against  Uruguay   whose  indiscipline  saw  them  reduced  to  nine  men  after two   dismissals. Again, Beckenbauer  came  from  deep  in midfield to score in a  4-0 victory.
Beckenbauer was again on the scoresheet in the semi-final against Russia who were also reduced to nine men, one  player leaving the field through injury, the other sent off. His goal was stunning, a left- footed  shot  from  outside  the  box  which he bent round the Russian wall to beat legendary  keeper  Lev  Yashin at the far post.

For the final against England, Beckenbauer was deputed to man-mark  Bobby Charlton  and followed him  all  around  Wembley. It was a battle of wits. Charlton  was  the  player the Germans feared most and  as  Beckenbauer  himsel f said  years  later: " England  beat  us in 1966 because Bobby Charlton  was just a bit better than me."
England   won  4-2  in  extra - time   though  a  Geoff  Hurst  hat-trick. The  result was a  huge   disappointment  for  the  young Beckenbauer, but  it  was  to  be  only  the  first  of  three  World Cup  Finals  he was to play in and he would have his revenge.

Back at Bayern, things were looking up for the club  which had only recently been admitted to the big time. The won the  West German Cup  in  both  1966 and 1967 and in that latter year won the first of their  European  trophies, the  Cup Winners' Cup, by beating  Glasgow  Rangers 1-0.
By this time, Beckenbauer was captain of Bayern and at the end of the decade the club had a talented team which was about to launch  itself  towards  European domination. Two of the other outstanding players in the side were goalkeeper  Sepp Maier and  centre-forward Gerd Muller, the striker who was to terrify England, becoming  known  as  Der Bomber.

In 1968 Beckenbauer  had  his  initial  taste  of  revenge  for  that   World  Cup  Final defeat, scoring the goal that gave West Germany victory for the  first  time  over  England. Success continued  at club level as he  led  Bayern  to  their  first Bundesliga  Championship  in 1969.

It was during this period of the late Sixties that Beckenbauer began  to  experiment with the tactic of  mounting  attacking  raids  from  the  centre of  defence. He had  watched and admired the runs down the  flank  of  the  tall  Internazionale and Italy  left-back  Giancinto Facchetti - an early version of today's wing-back - and wanted to adapt the methods to a similar role played from centre-back.
The  beauty of the ploy was, as explained  in Soccer:  The World Game:  " The role of sweeper appeared a perfect   launching  pad, since  the  sweeper  himself  was never marked, lurked deep at the back, and could pick his  moment  to  surge upfield."  Bayern  were  quickly  convinced  of  its  value, but  the West German  manager  Helmut Schoen  was  more cautious. Despite Beckenbauer's requests he was not allowed  to  play  the  way he wanted to for his country until the  European Championship Finals  of  1972, by which time he had been an international for seven years.

Before  then, of  course, was the  World Cup in Mexico in 1970. West  Germany   were not to win it, but  they  were  involved in one of the most  dramatic   World Cup matches and once again the opponents were the defending Champions England.
West Germany qualified for the quarter-finals by winning all their three games, beating Morocco 2-1, Bulgaria 5-2 and Peru 3-1. England, on the other hand, had lost one match - the colossal struggle with  Brazil to whom they went down 1-0. Many  thought that much of England's energy had been drained by that classic contest in the heat of Guadalajara. They  had  suffered another blow, too. Gordon Banks, the world's finest keeper, had been taken ill and would be replaced by Chelsea's Peter Bonetti.
Despite this, England took a 2-0 lead, with goals from Alan Mullery and Martin Peters, and appeared to be coasting towards the semi-finals. Then the game was turned on its head, and the man who started it was Beckenbauer.
Brian Glanville  describes  what  happened  in  his  book,  The  Story  of  the  World Cup: "Beckenbauer advanced, picked up a rebound, and sent a low, right-footed unexceptional shot towards the left-hand corner. Bonetti went down too late, the ball ran under his dive, and the score was 2-1."
It  was  the  start  of  a  nightmare  for  Bonetti. But much has been made of the fact that England manager  Alf Ramsey took off Bobby Charlton, wanting  to  rest  him  for  the  semi-finals, and brought on  Colin Bell in his place.
However, as  Glanville  points  out: " It  is  significant, given the  subsequent theory that all went awry when Charlton departed, thus  allowing  Beckenbauer  to  come   forward, that Beckenbauer  scored his vital goal  before  Charlton  was  replaced."
The equaliser came from the veteran Uwe Seeler who headed the ball in a looping  arc over  Bonetti  who was stranded in no-man's land. Then, in  extra-time, Hurst had a goal  disallowed  for  England  before  Muller - who was to finish the tournament's leading scorer with  10 - completed their torment with a thundering  volley to win the match.
Revenge  fo   that World Cup Final  defeat  was  sweet  for the  Germans. But  the joy was not to last. Despite  their  exhausting efforts against England, they were
1-1 at the end of normal time in the semi-final against Italy.
However, in the first period of extra-time, Beckenbauer was chopped down and injured. He carried on with his arm strapped to his side, but from then on he was merely a passenger. West Germany, without  their  sweeper and inspiration, went  down  4-3. Beckenbauer, though, would live to fight another day.

In  1971 he was made captain of his country and at last succeeded in putting his theories into practice. By  the  following year's European Championships, Beckenbauer personified the modern sweeper, the player around whom everything revolved. It paid off handsomely, West Germany  winning  the trophy by beating the  Soviet Union 3-0 in the final and  Beckenbauer being voted European Footballer of the Year.

It was just the start of a period of extraordinary success  for  Beckenbauer. Bayern, under his leadership, won three successive Budesliga Championships and three successive  European Cups - thrashing  Atletico  Madrid  4-0 in 1974  in a replay after a  1-1 draw, conquering  Don Revie's  Leeds United  2-0  in  1975  and  beating  St Etienne  of  France  1-0  in 1976. For good measure, Bayern also won the World Clubs Cup in 1976 with a 2-0 aggregate victory over  South American Champions Cruzeiro of Brazil. They were, undoubtedly, not just the premier club side in Europe, but the world.

But  the peak of achievement  for Beckenbauer was captaining his country  to World Cup victory  in  the  Olympic  Stadium in his home  city  of  Munich  in  1974. West  Germany  finished only   runners- up in an  easy group  in  the  early stages, surprisingly losing their first ever game against  East  Germany  1 - 0.  They  made no  mistakes  at  the  second  group  stage, however, winning all three matches.
But it was a team in the   other   half   of   the  draw   that  everyone  was  talking  about. The "Total Football" of Holland, captained  by Johan Cruyff, had  captured  the imagination. They had scored  14  goals  and conceded only one in six games en route to the final. Now they  were  ready  for  the  showdown   against  the  equally   effective  "Total  Football"  of  West  Germany. Perhaps  it should have been billed  "Total Box Office" - because with the two best players in the world, the match was inevitably presented as Beckenbauer v Cruyff.
Certainly the game was going to turn on whether the Germans  could stop Cruyff, but that job fell   not  to Beckenbauer but to Bertie Vogts, now manager of the current national side.
The  start  was  sensational. Holland  kicked-off  and  passed the ball around aimlessly as the home crowd whistled and jeered. Suddenly, Cruyff raced forward with the ball, went  past  Vogts and was tripped in the penalty area. Johan  Neeskens  took  the spot kick and West Germany were 1-0 down without having touched the ball.

With  such a  start, how  did  Holland lose? Brian Glanville  explains: " For  twenty-five  minutes  the  Dutch did as they pleased against a stunned German team, rolling the ball about, making pretty patterns, bur  creating  no  real opportunities. Dangerous indulgence against a host team;  and so it was that West Germany got off the hook."
First they equalised though  a  Paul Breitner  penalty and then Muller got the winner just before half-time as the Dutch defence began to wilt. Beckenbauer had achieved one half of his unique double.

He  was  voted  European Footballer  of the Year for the second time after that  hat-trick of European Cups in 1976, even though West Germany lost that year's European Championship Final to Czechoslovakia in a penalty shoot-out.

Beckenbauer had won a record  103 caps for West Germany when, in 1977, he accepted a 2.5 million dollar contract to play for the New York Cosmos in the North American Soccer League. He  stayed  four years in which the  Cosmos won the Soccer Bowl three times.

He briefly returned  to Germany before playing out  one  final  season  with  the  Cosmos before retiring in 1984. That year he was appointed the West German national  manager  in  succession  to Jupp Derwall. It was, in one sense, an extraordinary  appointment, for Beckenbauer had no coaching experience at all. His  apprenticeship was   served   gaining  qualification for the 1986 World Cup  in  Mexico  where he astonished  everyone by  taking  a  somewhat  ordinary  team  to the final where  they lost 3-2 to Argentina.

Italia 90 was different, however. Beckenbauer now had a united German  side  capable of going all the way. Once again it was England who were  blocking  his way,a 1-1  draw in the semi-final bringing about the drama of that penalty shoot-out in which Stuart  Pearce  and Chris Waddle missed to give Beckenbauer managerial victory over his rival Bobby Robson.

The  final - as in 1986 against Argentina - was a  sterile  affair,  a  penalty  being  enough to ensure the trophy for  the  Germans.  Beckenbauer  had  made  history  with  a  unique World Cup double.

After the headiness of international immortality, Beckenbauer moved into club management as coach at  Olympique Marseilles. It  was a brief and unsuccessful spell.He  returned  to  Bayern  as  coach  in  1994, guiding  them to the Bundesliga title before moving upstairs as the club president.

The  legacy  of  Beckenbauer's  golden  career  will  last  a long time, however. No other  footballer, as an innovator and as a winner, ever reached  such  heights  as  The Kaiser.
© 2005-2008. Barrie Spirit Soccer
Franz  Beckenbauer
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"The strong one doesn't win, the one who wins is strong"
        Franz  Beckenbauer
Born  on 
11th  September  1945, the  "Kaiser"    won    everything  there was to win as a player. From 1965 to 1977 he played professionally for Bayern, scoring 44 goals in a total of  396 Bundesliga appear.
He holds the title of honorary captain of both Germany and Bayern Munich.     He      coached Germany to  the  runners-up position  in  the 1986  World Cup and then to victory in the 1990 tournament, while in two short spells as Bayern coach, he collected  the 1994 Bundesliga  title and the 1996 UEFA Cup. Since 1994, Beckenbauer has been president of  Bayern Munich. He  also  holds the office of DFB vice-president and, having chaired the bid committee for the  2006 World Cup.
1945
Born on september 11 in Munich
1955
Began playing for the schoolboy team, FC 1906 Munich
1959
Joined Bayern Munich youth section
1962
Gave up job as a trainee insurance salesman to sign full-time with Bayern
1964
made  his   Bayern  debut in a 4 - 0 win away to St Pauli in Hamburg
1965
Made his national team debut in a 2-1 World Cup qualifying win in Sweden
1974
Captained Bayern Munich to victory in the European Cup Final and then West Germany to victory in the World Cup Final against Holland
1976
Completed a record 103 appearances for West Germany before transferring to the New York Cosmos in the North American Soccer League.
1984
Appointed national manager of West Germany in succesion to Jupp Dervall
1990
Become the first man  to captain and then manage a World Cup-winning team when West Germany beat Argentina 1-0 in Rome
1994
Took over as coach, guiding Bayern to the league title first as team manager then as club president
Coaching career:
W. German national team Sept.1984 - July 1990

World Cup Winner   1990,
Finalist   1986

14 World Cup matches,
8 wins, 4 draws, 2 defeats

Euro Championships
semi-final   1988

Record with W. Germany
66 matches,
35 wins,
18 draws,
13 defeats,
The 'Kaiser'
   CLUBS
SC 1906 Munich
1954 - 1958
Bayern Munich
1958 - 1977
New York Cosmos
USA /   1977 - 1980
Hamburg
1980-1982
New York Cosmos
USA /   1982 - 1983