Franz Beckenbauer
Franz Beckenbauer
Franz Anton Beckenbaueris a German former professional footballer and manager. Early in his playing career he was nicknamed Der Kaiserbecause of his elegant style, dominance and leadership on the field, and also as his first name "Franz" is reminiscent of the Austrian emperors. He is widely regarded to be one of the greatest players in the history of the sport. A versatile player who started out as a midfielder, Beckenbauer made his name as a central defender. He is often...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionSoccer Player
Date of Birth11 September 1945
CityMunich, Germany
CountryGermany
We are the last remaining country to allow ourselves two breaks in the season. You just have to look at England, Italy and Spain, they play right through the season. We on the other hand take six weeks off in the winter until the end of January, and that is a luxury.
The trouble for today's footballers is they have too many distractions. We used to get our old players coming to watch training with football magazines in their hands. Now, more often than not, they are checking the share prices.
What the FC Bayern has become is thanks to Gerd Mueller.
We are unfortunately not perceived as a particularly friendly people. We have to improve on that.
I've seen pretty much every stadium in the world, but I've never seen anything as good as this,
Is there a chance for Red Bull to be as good as the Cosmos? No, because there is no other Pele in the world. ... We're here to help Red Bull to be champions.
The work remains undone while we do nothing but put out fire after fire. I hope that it (the scandal) will be resolved as soon as possible and we can return to business as usual.
There's nothing major that needs to be done.
I was told to mark what was then the best player - Bobby Charlton. Bobby told me later that (England manager) Alf Ramsey had told him to keep an eye on this young, good-looking German guy.
It doesn't make sense any more to talk to him about it. I don't know how often I've spoken with him and told him that he must be in Germany during the final run-up to the tournament. If that's how he views the profession then he will have to live with the criticism.
We just can't have the best goalkeeper off playing golf while we have an international match, ... Next time, he's going swimming.
We are back where we were a few years ago and time is running out.
Jurgen is shying away from making a decision.
We can all be very proud. It's a quantum leap forward. We're playing in a true football stadium at last.