Franz Beckenbauer (†78) had withdrawn from the public. The former shining light of football lived a shadowy existence before his death.
The fact that Franz Beckenbauer, of all people, missed the meeting in the summer 33 years after the great World Cup triumph was particularly painful for the 1990 World Cup heroes. “Franz Beckenbauer created this unique solidarity in this team. No one else. We owe him everything!” said Lothar Matthäus, the captain under team boss Beckenbauer at the time, to the “Bild” newspaper.
However, with a heavy heart, Beckenbauer apologized to his wife Heidi. “Unfortunately Franz cannot be there for health reasons. It would simply be too much for him,” she said. And so the 1990 World Cup heroes had to reminisce in the luxury hotel “Das Achental” in Grassau am Chiemsee without Beckenbauer.
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It has been a sad certainty for a year now that it will remain this way in the future. There will no longer be a world championship meeting with Beckenbauer. The football legend died on January 7, 2024 at the age of 78.
Beckenbauer had almost completely withdrawn from the public eye for years. There was a big exception in January 2023, when Beckenbauer resumed a tradition for the first time after the corona pandemic and invited people to eat carp in a hotel in Kitzbühel (Austria). There he presented himself with his son Joel and his wife Heidi and received 100 invited guests. (You can read more about Beckenbauer’s last public appearance here.)
His visits to the stadium also became increasingly rare. His very last one was already a long time ago when he was spotted in the stands in August 2022. Beckenbauer was not at FC Bayern’s top game against Borussia Mönchengladbach (1-1) in the Munich Arena – where he was last a guest in the game against Stuttgart (4-0) in March 2021.
Instead, he watched 1899 Hoffenheim’s home game against FC Augsburg (1-0). Beckenbauer, who was considered a friend and confidant of Hoffenheim’s patron Dietmar Hopp, watched the game in a VIP box alongside his son Joel and appeared there wearing sunglasses and a white beard.
He appeared noticeably slim and gaunt, as he had done in his previously very rare public appearances. The days when the “Kaiser” was still the head of organization for the 2006 home World Cup, whirling around the entire football kingdom in a helicopter and often being spotted in several stadiums on the same day, were long gone.
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As is well known, the dark shadows that spread over the so-called summer fairy tale also captured its radiance. (You can read more about the allegations against Beckenbauer in connection with the 2006 World Cup here.) The former shining light of German football led a shadowy existence before his death. Beckenbauer no longer lived in Kitzbühel, but rather retired in Salzburg. Comments from the football nation’s previously omnipresent chief explainer had become a rarity.
The fire of enthusiasm for his FC Bayern, which he shaped like no other as a player, coach and president, still blazed within him. So it was no coincidence that the club’s honorary president was lured out of his seclusion again by Munich’s furious start in the season before last.
When Bild surprised him with a call immediately after Bayern’s 6-1 win in Frankfurt, he said: “I haven’t seen such enthusiasm, such a performance for a long time. The successes with Lewandowski are the past, this team is the future .” For a brief moment, we could once again glimpse the old Beckenbauer, whose word had the highest possible weight in football Germany not so long ago.