He died on January 7th in Salzburg at the age of 78. We look back on his life in pop.
In an anthology published by the German gas station chain “Aral” for the 1970 Soccer World Cup in Mexico, Franz Beckenbauer not only provides the foreword: “For my comrades from the German national team and for me, the games will be a highlight in our careers “, it says there in sportsman style.
Beckenbauer is the face of this marketing campaign by gasoline sellers. In the same volume you can find “My Little Football School” (sponsored by Adidas) with tips on dribbling or “butting your head”.
A home story in the house in Solln near Munich, with his then wife Brigitte and their three sons completes the pleasant kicker picture. Franz Beckenbauer will be 25 years old at the time of the Mexico World Cup.
As early as 1967, he advertised products in a legendary soup commercial for “Knorr”. Later (1986) he explains tactical finesse using plastic cups from “Müller Milch”. Alongside Uwe Seeler, who stood in front of the bathroom mirror for “Pitralon” aftershave, he was one of the first German Bundesliga footballers to know how to market his “fame” outside of the stadiums. With the active help of (Bayern) manager Robert Schwan, who died in 2002. He also records (hit) singles, but these are also rather boring accompanying music.
Modern football
The Kaiser recognizes very early on how modern football works. But despite all the elegance and grandeur on the field, was he a pop icon? Rather not. Or to put it another way: first via detours. He has to be over 30 to discover chic on the dance floor.
In contrast to Günther Netzer, for example, who poses in a pimp’s fur coat in front of his disco “Lover’s Lane” in Mönchengladbach on the Lower Rhine, the emperor initially remains in the Bavarian-bourgeois camp.
“We are doing a lot,” he admits in Aral’s World Cup book. “We have a house in Solln and I drive a car that costs a lot of money. But we’re not throwing any marks out the window!”
In complete contrast to Manchester United’s bad boy, George Best, the younger Beckenbauer, grounded in the Munich suburbs, concentrates on sport. The detached house in the countryside serves him for regeneration.
New York becomes the empire of the emperor
That changed suddenly when he moved to the exotic club Cosmos New York on July 1, 1977 in the autumn of his football career. “New York has become an empire,” says an official chronicle from the Museum of Bayern Munich.
“And Franz Beckenbauer finally became a man of the world in the USA, between the urban canyons of the Big Apple through encounters with Andy Warhol, Cassius Clay and Mick Jagger, on the football field alongside Pelé, Carlos Alberto, Giorgio Chinaglia – and Werner Roth, the German-speaking captain of the Cosmos world star ensemble, which was supposed to make football socially acceptable in the States. The USA was, as it was said back then, the land of unlimited opportunities. And New York provided the perfect playing field…”
In the US fantasy league, which didn’t have a long existence at the time, the sport was able to take a back seat. And the show, including a few visits to the super disco “Studio 54”, is also becoming more important for Beckenbauer.
After his return to Europe he was ennobled in New York. And the second, long phase of Franz Beckenbauer as a bon vivant, coach and father of the 2006 World Cup in Germany can begin.
The emperor, if you will, discovered the dolce vita that his genius on the pitch made possible for him only late. In his youth he was a relatively well-behaved Bavarian libero, later becoming the so-called “man of the world.”