Beckenbauer speaks at FIFA Congress
On July 30th 1966 the man who created what came to be known in football parlance as the “Libero” position was only twenty one years of age when he played alongside Karl-Heinz Schellinger; Willi Schulz, Wolfgang Weber, Helmut Haller, Uwe Seeler and Wolfgang Overath in the Wolrd Cup final at Wembley. Despite his youth he did not look at all out of place in the national team. So it has remained ever since for Franz Beckenbauer.
In fact, if the truth were known he was probably directing the team on the field that day in the same way he has continued to oversee German football during the past forty five years since losing that final, both at Bayern Munich and the National team. But on Wednesday, at the 61st FIFA Congress in Zurich, Franz Beckenbauer ended his last formal association with the sport, stepping down from the FIFA Executive Committee.
It brings to a close an involvement in football which has seen him win the world cup as a player in 1974, win it as a manager in 1990, and bring the tournament back to his home land in the summer of 2006. At the same time he revamped the fortunes of Bayern Munich after he returned from his years few years with the New York Cosmos in the USA, helped Germany restructure their domestic game and delivered much time to a role at UEFA.
Although once seen as the natural successor for Sepp Blatter, should the vacancy arise, Beckenbauer ironically decided to step down on the same day the current President was re-elected for a record fourth time. But with two young children from his third marriage to Heidi, he has remained true to the promise he made to them and will now spend more time at the family home in Austria.
However, they should be warned, Der Kaiser will maintain one role until the 2014 World Cup and that is to continue as Chairman of Task Force Football, which is charged with carrying out an in-depth analysis of the modern game. The expectation is that in time it will make proposals designed to improve football at every level. Never short of an opinion on the game, Beckenbauer shared some early thoughts in his speech to the FIA Congress in Zurich.
In his remarks he reflected on some of the changes to the game over the years and praised the impact of banning the back pass for instance, but at the same time warned the audience "we cannot promise we will have similar brainwaves". Under review are proposals to do away with extra-time at youth level, allow senior teams to make a fourth substitution during extra-time, in order to combat fatigue and injury.
Beckenbauer also advocated the deployment of more match officials, which he said will come into force at the Euro 2012 competition to make sure that offences such as Thierry Henry's infamous handball - against the Republic of Ireland in the 2010 play-off in Paris - will no longer go undetected by the referee.
Surprisingly he is not a fan of goal line technology, despite the events at Wembley on July 30th 1966.
"Everyone yells for technology but I'm in favour of the two additional referees and that is the consensus inside the football committees of FIFA and UEFA. Goal line technology only covers whether the ball has crossed the line. Would it be 100 per cent accurate? I'm not so sure."
In terms of things on the field, Beckenbauer criticised the play-acting displayed by Real Madrid and Barcelona in the recent Champions League semi-final, saying "I would have sent all the players off". In addition, he made it clear the task force will explore ways of eliminating such behaviour from the game at their next meeting.
Given his achievements, who would doubt him as the Bavarian defender holds an unparalleled record in the sport with a tremendous record in overcoming previous defeats history shows.
In the 1970 World Cup in Mexico Beckenbauer won the re-match with England in the quarterfinals at the Estadio de Guanajato in Leon, with Uwe Seeler’s team making the semi-finals as a result. It was in that fixture that Beckenbauer played most of the game with a broken collar bone and dislocated shoulder after a fall during the match against Italy. The images of him playing in a sling still resonate with fans all over the world to this day.
In the end Italy won that classic match, but only after extra time, by 4 goals to three.
In 1974 Franz captained Germany to victory in his home stadium in Munich, but lost the EURO 1976 final against Czechoslovakia, played in the former Yugoslavia. Two years later having retired from international football he did not travel to Argentina, but returned in 1984 as the National Coach, where his career was to be equally impressive.
It was back in Mexico once again, at the Azteca stadium in Mexico City in 1986 that his West Germany lost to Diego Maradona's Argentina when goals from Jose Brown, Jorge Valdano and Javier Burruchaga sorted the final out in favour of the South Americans. But in 1990, in Rome, having also beaten England on penalties in Turin, Germany went on to exact revenge over Argentina in the re-match at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome.
Sadly it was only a remarkable final because of the numerous yellows cards, even if Germany emerged winners by one goal to nil.
In FIFA history only two men have won the World Cup both as a player and coach, with Franz Beckenbauer one of them. The other is Mario Zagallo of Brazil, who won two World Cup medals as a player, one as manager and another as assistant manager – a record unlikely to be ever broken. In 2010 though Diego Armando Maradona came closest to joining that elite club only to see his Argentina team fail to reach the final, having lost Germany 4-0 in Cape Town.
When recently asked how best to deal with another Argentinian maestro. Lionel Messi, if Beckenbauer were still given the task of marking him, the German’s answer is typically insightful.
"In the 60's and 70's, the game was much rougher. If Messi had come up against a specialist like Berti Vogts, he would have been destroyed. It's lucky for him that is playing when he is."
For the moment though Beckenbauer just wants to play golf and do some more hill walking around his home.
So no need to worry about Messi.
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