German football legend, Franz Beckenbauer is dead.
Beckenbauer who left a unique imprint on German football as a player, captain and coach, has died at the age of 78.
The German Football Association disclosed on Monday.
“Franz Beckenbauer was definitely the biggest German footballer of all time, and above all one of the greatest men who I have known,” DFB Vice President, Hans-Joachim Watzke, said.
Beckenbauer, one of only three men to win the World Cup as a player and as a coach, passed away on Sunday, the DFB said.
Former captain of the German team in the 1970s, Beckenbauer had in the last years been suffering from health problems and lived mostly withdrawn from the public eye in Salzburg, just across from the German border.
Known in football-obsessed Germany as ‘the Kaiser’ meaning ‘the Emperor’, Beckenbauer played a central role in some of the country’s greatest sporting achievements, but his legacy was later tarnished for his involvement in scandals surrounding Germany’s successful bid to host the 2006 World Cup.
Born in Munich in 1945, Beckenbauer helped establish Bayern as his country’s strongest club.
Alongside Mario Zagallo – who died aged 92 on Friday – and Didier Deschamps, Beckenbauer is one of only three men to have won the World Cup as both a player and a manager.
He captained West Germany to the 1974 World Cup title on home soil when they beat the Netherlands 2-1 in the Munich final, then managed the team that beat Argentina 1-0 in Rome to lift the trophy at Italia 90.
Beckenbauer, a commanding figure on and off the pitch, was named European Footballer of the Year in both 1972 and 1976.
He made 424 appearances in the Bundesliga, scoring 44 goals, including in 13 years for Bayern, before joining Hamburg and New York Cosmos, where he finished his playing career in 1983.
Beckenbauer had stints as manager in club football at both Bayern and Marseille, winning the French league title in 1991 and the Bundesliga in 1994.
In 1996, he stopped coaching and his role as president of Bayern led to a place on the Executive Committee of football’s governing body FIFA.
