JEFF POWELL: Franz Beckenbauer was truly great as a player and a manager
One sun-kissed summer’s afternoon in a garden in the leafy Essex enclave of Chingford, the two greatest defenders in football history sat playing chess as they discussed the strategies behind their winning of World Cups.
This was cerebral multi-tasking of a high order. Between moving their pieces around the board, England’s Adonis talked of staying composed under fire, Germany’s Kaiser of inventing the role of sweeper.
Of how Bobby Moore’s calm in a crisis was crucial to his captaining of England to their only World Cup glory, at West Germany’s expense in the 1966 final.
Of how Franz Beckenbauer’s inspiring, virtuoso variation on Teutonic discipline and organisation led Germany to their epic triumph over Johan Cruyff and the Netherlands’ Total Football in 1974.
Of course, they pondered Geoff Hurst’s critical on-or-over-the-line goal at Wembley. ‘Never in,’ said Der Kaiser. ‘Well over,’ said Sir Robert, as he should have been ennobled.
Of course, they traced their mutual histories through the intervening quarter-final of Mexico ’70, when Sir Alf Ramsey’s substitution of Bobby Charlton released Beckenbauer to launch Germany’s stunning comeback from two goals down to win 3-2.
‘We gave it away to you, old chap,’ said Bobby. ‘We seized it from you old boys,’ said Franz.
There was plenty of agreement, too. Not least as dusk fell, when Beckenbauer said: ‘If ever we had played in the same World Cup team, it would have been a waste of time our friend Pele and his Brazilians turning up.’
Der Kaiser was visiting Sir Robert’s home a year or few after both had hung up their boots.
Fast forward to the late summer of 1990. Beckenbauer had just become one of only two men to win the World Cup as a player and a manager, in the elite company of
Read on m.allfootballapp.com
