Franz Beckenbauer: Der Kaiser

Franz Beckenbauer, born in Munich in 1945, changed the geometry of football from the back. Playing as a sweeper — the libero behind the defensive line — he refused to treat the position as purely destructive. Instead he stepped out with the ball, started attacks, and turned the deepest role on the pitch into its most creative. Elegant, unhurried and always with time on the ball, he made defending look like an art of intelligence rather than force, and every ball-playing centre-back since has followed the path he cut.

With Bayern Munich, Beckenbauer built a dynasty. He captained a side that won three consecutive European Cups from 1974 to 1976, alongside Gerd Müller and Sepp Maier, and made Bayern the dominant force in German football and a power across the continent. Twice he was named European Footballer of the Year, in 1972 and 1976 — an almost unheard-of honour for a defender — a measure of how completely he had redefined what his position could contribute to a great team.

Beckenbauer sits in the rarest company in the game: he won the World Cup both as a player and as a manager. In 1974 he captained West Germany to the title on home soil, the on-field leader of a golden generation. Sixteen years later, in 1990, he guided the national team to the trophy again as their coach — a feat only a handful of people in football history have matched. Few careers so completely span the eras of playing and building, and none did it with more command.

The nickname captured him perfectly. On the pitch he ruled with a serene authority; off it he became one of the game's great statesmen, later leading the campaign that brought the 2006 World Cup to Germany. Like several of his generation he spent a spell with the New York Cosmos, spreading the game abroad. When he died in 2024, football mourned not only a supreme player but the man who had shown that a defender could be a team's brain, its captain and its emperor all at once.