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Franz Beckenbauer in Mexico in 1986: An emperor defies control
Photo: Bongarts / Getty Images
The countless anecdotes about Franz Beckenbauer include the story of how he got his nickname.
In August 1971, FC Bayern visited Vienna, and Beckenbauer looked at the bust of Emperor Franz Joseph in the Hofburg.
At that moment, the photographer Hebert Sündhofer pressed the shutter release and the "kicker" headlined: "Two emperors met".
It is not even sure whether it was really this episode that made Beckenbauer emperor or whether the "Bild" newspaper coined the name two years earlier.
But it doesn't matter either.
There was a time when Beckenbauer seemed to be drawn into the world of myths, stories and legends anyway; he had long since had nothing to do with the brittle everyday life.
It is only appropriate that the World Cup, which he brought to Germany as OC boss, was subsequently called a fairy tale.
Whether "Kicker" or "Bild" newspaper - it is more important that the person who awarded Franz Beckenbauer the title of Kaiser proved an unexpected prophecy.
An emperor is the one who resides at the top, floats away from everything else, above everyone else, someone who exudes majesty and at the same time eludes any control.
The emperor can do what he wants.
Franz Beckenbauer was and is the emperor.
In everything he did.
Until the very end.
Suddenly emperor and petty bourgeois at the same time
The mythical, the legendary that haunted this Franz Beckenbauer has been history since 2015, since the allegations and revelations about the purchase of the World Cup, he is not only an emperor but also a petty bourgeois, he is suddenly the son of the little postal worker Franz Beckenbauer again Senior, someone who came from below, wanted to get to the top - and who at some point when he was upstairs no longer asked whether the means may justify the end.
His autobiography was called "One Like Me", the title made it clear how unique he should be, now he was just someone like her.
There is probably no greater fall than from someone who, in view of his 75th birthday today, "ZEIT" called "the coolest thing that German culture has ever had to offer" this week, to someone who with tax evasion, with greed, has been associated with holding hands.
Beckenbauer had always been both a figure of light and shadow.
His tax stories date back to the 1970s, when the Free State turned a blind eye to the celebrity and the legendary and now notorious manager Robert Schwan regulated his protégé's financial transactions in his favor.
Everything was just let through to him, he was Franz.
That is now over, and as so often in life, the last impression now seems to be the most formative.
The light is now regarded as the frivolous, the sublime as the aloof, Beckenbauer first took the stars down from the sky, then he took himself down from the monument.
So much is now disappearing in the dark that was previously light.
Is that fair?
He was never a tribune of the people
With Diego Maradona, the great, and in such categories, one has to think at Beckenbauer, failure has always been an inherent part of the concept, the fear of his admirers, what he might be doing in the near future.
Maradona always seemed to be a big child, someone who would have loved to be protected, his closeness to the people, the veneration that is still shown to him in Naples today, is also due to this.
Maradona made his missteps and you knew it was going to happen, the fame was just too much for him.
For Beckenbauer, fame was almost too little, it belonged to him.
He was never a tribune of the people; everything he got seemed appropriately allocated to him.
Things seemed to flow to him even when they were worked out.
Only the hearts, they didn't fly to him.
At the 1974 World Cup, Beckenbauer, the captain, was whistled by his own audience in the preliminary round against Australia, he seemed too arrogant to the fans in Hamburg's Volksparkstadion.
In the end he was the father of the World Cup triumph, but they loved little Gerd Müller more, who had his problems with life like Maradona.
Beckenbauer was just the emperor.
You are ruled by an emperor.
Beckenbauer was always more admired than loved, everything seemed too successful for him, that wasn’t too much human, one couldn’t even be jealous of him anymore.
When he had his outbursts of anger, when he knocked on his affable slogans, when he let his charm spray - even his moods turned into a Beckenbauer anecdote story for the colorful Beckenbauer picture book in the end.
But after the SPIEGEL revealed the summer fairy tale affair, Beckenbauer lost all of his nonchalance.
He withdrew, holed up behind lawyers and certificates, his public appearances have become rare, and only the "Bild" newspaper has remained loyal to him.
This week he was allowed to say the following sentence in relation to the World Cup affair: "I see that it is now accepted that there was nothing."
It also takes a certain distance from the world to be emperor.
Gray over the colorful pictures
Beckenbauer, world champion as a player, world champion as a trainer, with Pele at Cosmos New York, in the helicopter over Germany, Look, it's Christmas today, THE Libero, Mister Federal Republic, the Lord is happy about every human child, Uwe -Seeler traditional team, the slap in the face of the sixties, Knorr on the plate, the goal wall hit from the wheat beer glass, I haven't seen any slaves, alone on the lawn of Rome, no one can separate good friends - so many pictures, such a full life, all that is still there, but there is a gray veil over the many colorful pictures.
Franz Beckenbauer remains the exceptional figure in German football, none of the titles he has won can be taken from him.
But it has seldom happened that in the end one has so damaged his own life's work.
And less because his business came to light, but more about how he handled it.
Beckenbauer is also unique in this case.
The Emperor Franz Joseph ruled the Habsburg Empire for decades, in recent years everything has collapsed.
It is Franz Beckenbauer's own fault that he has to endure such monstrous comparisons.
But the bust remains.
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