{"id":707329,"date":"2026-06-01T07:13:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T07:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/707329\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T07:13:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T07:13:13","slug":"the-soccer-100-franz-beckenbauer-der-kaiser-and-the-slap-that-helped-make-bayern-munich-a-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/707329\/","title":{"rendered":"The Soccer 100: Franz Beckenbauer \u2014 Der Kaiser and the slap that helped make Bayern Munich a force"},"content":{"rendered":"

As part of our buildup to the 2026 FIFA men\u2019s World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico, we are publishing excerpted chapters from The Soccer 100<\/a>, The Athletic\u2019s definitive book on the 100 greatest players of all time, courtesy of HarperCollins Publishers.<\/p>\n

The 10 players we will feature are the highest ranked World Cup winners of our 100. Today we feature one of the greatest to ever wear the Bayern Munich and West Germany shirts.<\/p>\n

If you subscribe to the multiverse theory \u2014 the idea that every decision we make splits the world into different universes: one where we turn left, one where we turn right \u2014 then somewhere in the infiniteness there is another reality where the biggest club in Munich is not actually Bayern, but 1860.<\/p>\n

The split may have occurred during a Bavarian junior football tournament in 1958.<\/p>\n

A young striker was playing for his team, SC Munich 1906, but the word was that the club was struggling to find the money and coaches to continue with all their teams the following season. A group of the players thus planned to move to 1860, who were the biggest club in the region at that time and who they just happened to be playing in the final of the tournament.<\/p>\n

The game was ill-tempered and the striker in question became embroiled in an altercation with an opponent. The 1860 player ended up giving the forward a slap around the face.<\/p>\n

And that, the story goes, is how Franz Beckenbauer decided to snub his local side \u2014 the one he grew up supporting and whose forwards, Ludwig Zausinger and Kurt Mondschein, he so idolized \u2014 in favor of Bayern.<\/p>\n

There is almost certainly a good degree of mythmaking to the tale. It was one Beckenbauer was fond of telling and a few different people have claimed to be the deliverer of the slap over the years. But whether the truth is that neat, or whether there was more nuance, his decision changed the course of German, European, and maybe even world football history.<\/p>\n

Is that an exaggeration? Perhaps, but Beckenbauer\u2019s impact on the game shouldn\u2019t be underestimated.<\/p>\n

\"Fans<\/p>\n

\n Fans take photographs of a bronze statue of Der Kaiser outside the Allianz Arena (Maja Hitij\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

He wasn\u2019t just a brilliant player. There are loads of brilliant players. Another 99 of them in this book, for starters. Very few are brilliant players and invent things that change the game. But Beckenbauer was and did.<\/p>\n

Maybe it is also a slight stretch to say that he invented Bayern as we know them today. But when he made his first-team debut for them in 1964, they were the second-most-popular team in Munich and were in the German second tier. They were promoted the following season, won the DFB-Pokal the season after that, claimed the European Cup Winners\u2019 Cup in 1967 and their first Bundesliga title (along with the DFB-Pokal again) in 1969, and were three-time European champions by the mid-1970s.<\/p>\n

Beckenbauer was captain for a lot of this, and although coaches like Udo Lattek and Branko Zebec were clearly influential and players like Gerd Mu\u0308ller, Sepp Maier, and Paul Breitner had comparable impacts on the pitch, only one of those men earned the nickname \u201cDer Kaiser\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Franz<\/p>\n

\n Franz Beckenbauer swaps pennants with Atletico Madrid\u2019s captain Adelardo ahead of the 1974 European Cup final in Brussels (BELGA\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Correlation does not always equal causation, but before Beckenbauer arrived, Bayern had one German title in 1932 \u2014 in the pre-Bundesliga days, the champions were decided through regional leagues that then fed into a playoff-type system \u2014 and one German cup to their name. By the time he left in 1977, they were the dominant force in German football and would remain so for the following generations.<\/p>\n

Unless something implausible happens between the writing of this book and whenever you are reading it, they will almost certainly remain the biggest club in Germany for some time to come.<\/p>\n

And he was always keen to take the credit for it. \u201cLattek should have been grateful to me,\u201d he wrote in one of his autobiographies, published in 1975, about the success that had been built at Bayern by the early 1970s. If you want an idea of how much he was deferred to at Bayern, regard what Mu\u0308ller, the greatest goalscorer in Bayern and German history, told Bild in 1971. \u201cI will always be in Beckenbauer\u2019s shadow,\u201d he said. \u201cAt some other club, I would have the chance to be the number one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Franz<\/p>\n

\n Franz Beckenbauer and Gerd M\u00fcller, Bayern Munich greats (Rustullstein bild via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Beckenbauer also invented a position.<\/p>\n

The Italian interpretation of the sweeper, or libero, was purely as a prophylactic; the player who sat behind the defense and swept up any lingering attacking threats, the last, last line of defense after the last line of defense.<\/p>\n

His version of the position was rather truer to the literal translation of the word libero, which is Italian for \u201cfree\u201d or \u201cindependent\u201d. Beckenbauer was initially a slightly flighty forward who was moved back into midfield by a youth coach concerned about how often he was kicked up in the air by ruffian defenders. When he arrived at Bayern, he was moved even farther back in part because of his slightly bratty nature. The theory was to teach him some responsibility and teamwork. And it paid off.<\/p>\n

Beckenbauer was initially more of what we would now term a deep-lying midfielder, but back in the 1960s, the role was very much viewed as part of the defense. He realized that with nobody specific to mark, he could have a bit more freedom than most defenders. He took inspiration from the Italian left-back Giacinto Facchetti, who would often storm forward down the flank, but Beckenbauer realized that while Facchetti was limited by the constraints of his position on the flank, from the middle he could essentially go anywhere if he wanted to.<\/p>\n

And he did, roaming forward and starting attacks at will; a defender with a forward\u2019s spirit.<\/p>\n

\"Franz<\/p>\n

\n Franz Beckenbauer training at Wembley Stadium during the 1966 World Cup (Central Press\/Hulton Archive\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The role became so closely associated with him that he starred in an odd 1973 film \u2014 called Libero \u2014 that was part fiction, part documentary about his life and career up to that stage. Alas, the film wasn\u2019t so much panned as utterly ridiculed when it came out and there were rumors that Beckenbauer tried to buy every copy of it so they could be destroyed. If he did try, he wasn\u2019t successful. You can watch all deeply curious 79 minutes of it on YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Still, while the film sank without a trace, the position after which it was named very much did not. It never really caught on properly in England, but it took hold in Germany to the extent the national team played with a libero pretty consistently until the early 2000s, with either specialists like Matthias Sammer or aging players who dropped back, like Lothar Matth\u00e4us.<\/p>\n

And it made him one of the greats. The men\u2019s Ballon d\u2019Or tends to be the preserve of the attacker, the fantasista, the player who gets us out of our seats. That is perfectly logical. The ultimate point of football is to score goals, so why should we heap praise on the nerds trying to stop them? As such, at the time of writing, only four goalkeepers or defenders have been bestowed France Football\u2019s shiny orb since the first in 1956: Lev Yashin, Sammer, Fabio Cannavaro, and Beckenbauer. Der Kaiser is the only one to win it more than once.<\/p>\n

This is partly because he was so good, but also partly because he had many of the elements of the attackers that more naturally catch the eye. He wasn\u2019t just some meat-and-potatoes center-back who headed and cleared and tackled. He was elegant and upright, a defender who incorporated the bits of football that we do find fun.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\n Franz Beckenbauer grasps the World Cup trophy in 1974 (AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

That\u2019s just the stuff he did as a player.<\/p>\n

His career ended slightly limply. He moved to the United States in 1977 to join the nascent North American Soccer League, where he took over from Pel\u00e9 as the jewel in the crown of the defining club of that era, the New York Cosmos. That move was not inspired by the spirit of invention, or to expand into football\u2019s new world, but was largely motivated by a need for money to pay a colossal tax bill.<\/p>\n

The negotiations to take him to New York were tough and resulted in Beckenbauer having to give up some of his $2.8 million (\u00a32.1 m) salary to grease the wheels with Bayern, who were stubbornly holding out for a decent transfer fee. That meant his farewell was low-key, as Uli Hesse outlined in his biography of the player, The Three Lives of the Kaiser. \u201cThere was not even a lap of honor, let alone plans for a testimonial. Beckenbauer had even declined the offer of a banquet in his honour with a scathing riposte: \u2018If you have to part with 350,000 deutsche mark to get away from the club, you can pay for your own dinner.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

\"Franz<\/p>\n

\n Franz Beckenbauer runs out for New York Cosmos at the Rose Bowl in April, 1978 (Tony Duffy\/Allsport\/Hulton Archive\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

He returned to West Germany for an underwhelming spell at Hamburg, but his next significant contribution to the game would come on the international stage.<\/p>\n

The failure to make it out of the group stage at the 1984 European Championship had produced mass national handwringing and a nation turned its lonely eyes to Der Kaiser. Coach Beckenbauer duly took West Germany to the final of the 1986 World Cup, where they lost to Argentina. But he went on to become the second man to lift the trophy as both a player and a manager (M\u00e1rio Zagallo did it in 1970 and Didier Deschamps would join them in 2018) when Andreas Brehme\u2019s penalty won a truly turgid final in 1990 against the same opposition.<\/p>\n

\"Franz<\/p>\n

\n Franz Beckenbauer celebrates West Germany\u2019s success in the 1990 World Cup final (AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

National treasure status assured, then? Well, yes. Mostly.<\/p>\n

Beckenbauer was, broadly speaking, admired as not just his nation\u2019s greatest-ever player, but as a footballing statesman. The sort of person whose words could make even preeminent figures stop in their tracks. \u201cIt feels great he speaks positively about me,\u201d Ju\u0308rgen Klopp told the media after Beckenbauer praised his work at Liverpool in 2019. \u201cIt is just like the king with his sword calling a man \u2018sir.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

Yet, oddly, despite being widely admired and adored by the majority of the German public for most of his life, Beckenbauer still carried a minor chip on his shoulder. The sense that he could be loved more.<\/p>\n

In his autobiography, Beckenbauer spoke about the affection given to many other German football heroes. \u201cEven the fans in Munich never cheered me the way people in Hamburg cheered their Uwe Seeler \u2026 these are men everyone can relate to. People have the impression that this player is one of them. Sadly, this is not the case with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can read this a few ways. One is that Beckenbauer really did never truly receive the adoration from the broader public. Or that his complaints are just human nature: People always want something they do not have and the different sort of affection the public held for those other players was what he wanted. Another is that this was just a thinly veiled excuse for a humblebrag, that he knew he was an impossible man to relate to because he was so otherworldly. He didn\u2019t exist on the same plane of reality as everyone else.<\/p>\n

His nickname was Der Kaiser. How do you relate to an emperor?<\/p>\n

\"Bayern<\/p>\n

\n Bayern Munich fans celebrate beneath Franz Beckenbauer\u2019s No 5 shirt at the Allianz Arena (Alex Grimm\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

He was also the symbol of Bayern, the most loved and the most hated club in Germany until RB Leipzig arrived on the scene to take ownership of the latter crown. Bayern\u2019s combination of arrogance, superiority, and unrelenting success made them a target for ire by the early 1970s and that has continued to this day.<\/p>\n

Another, less generous interpretation of why perhaps not everyone loved Beckenbauer was his relationship with money. The tax bill in the 1970s was one thing, but in later years he was implicated in a few different scandals connected to various World Cup bids. In 2016 he was sanctioned by the FIFA Ethics Committee for initially not cooperating with a corruption inquiry. He was questioned over payments linked to South Africa\u2019s bid for the 2010 tournament, which he said were consultancy fees. He denied taking bribes from Qatar and Russia in connection to their World Cups, investigations that were curtailed in 2021 because the statute of limitations had expired.<\/p>\n

The thing is, do you really think of those things when you contemplate Beckenbauer? Perhaps we should, but when he died in 2024, most of the obituaries glossed over any question of impropriety, partly because of the \u201cdon\u2019t speak ill of the dead\u201d rule, but also because his contribution to the game over previous decades ensured that most people overlooked all of that.<\/p>\n

Should that be the case? The pure of heart and soul might suggest not, but it was. It would take more than that to taint the name of Franz Beckenbauer.<\/p>\n

Excerpted from The Soccer 100<\/a> by Oliver Kay & James Horncastle with The Athletic Soccer Staff, published by William Morrow. Copyright \u00a9 2025 by The Athletic Media Company. Reprinted courtesy of HarperCollins Publishers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As part of our buildup to the 2026 FIFA men\u2019s World Cup in the United States, Canada and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":707330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[565,35904,49,48,103818,10816,571,574,561,82],"class_list":["post-707329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-bayern-munich","tag-bundesliga","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fifa-mens-world-cup","tag-germany","tag-international-football","tag-premier-league","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=707329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/707330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}