The German giant whose playing career overshadowed his managerial genius

Only two men in history have won the World Cup as both captain and manager of their country. One is France boss Didier Deschamps, who accomplished the latter in 2018. 

The other is Der Kaiser himself, whose shimmering, venerated playing career almost always serves to overshadow a managerial run that was great by its own merit, but had it been given the chance to truly flourish, would have easily shaken off its status as a footnote to one of the most extraordinary football careers ever.

Of course, when you have the gall to win five ​Bundesligas, three European Cups, a World Cup,  a European Championship, and get yourself named in the FIFA World Team of the Century, all the while playing in a position you invented, then you are setting yourself an unthinkably high bar for anything you do in your years off the field. 

But Beckenbauer’s immeasurably-larger-than-life character, and status as one of the greatest leaders in the history of German football, meant that he was always going to be given a chance to manage his country, and indeed the club at which he was immortalised, at some point.

Such was his formidable status, that while your run-of-the-mill national legend might have to spend a few years cutting his teeth in management at ground level before being handed the first-team reins, Beckenbauer cut to the front of the queue, and no one dared stop him. 

In his first ever job in senior management, four years after calling time on his playing career, a 38-year-old Beckenbauer was tasked with taking over a German side at – by German standards – a low ebb, inheriting the post from Jupp Derwall, who had seen his side slowly decline since their Euro 1980 success.

He was tasked with reinventing a team that crashed out of the 1984 tournament at the group stage, and his deployment of Stuttgart’s Karlheinz Förster in the Libero role he had made famous himself, behind the back four, was central to his early efforts at doing so. 

The West German side of the 1986 World Cup in Mexico were far from flawless, as evidenced by an indifferent group stage that featured just one victory – over Scotland – and qualification for the last 16 by the skin of their teeth. 

“Franz Beckenbauer symbolises football and a winning mentality. On top of that, he brought the World Cup to his own country. We’re proud of him.”

– Boris Becker

Slowly but surely, however, it became clear that the previously fragile mentality that had plagued them…