What made Franz Beckenbauer so appealing to generations of Germans is that – at least until the last few years of his life – he came across as a character straight out of a fairytale. Not from one of the Brothers Grimm originals, which are usually more twisted and sinister than the Disney versions, but from one of those stories in which everything always turns out well in the end: Franz im Glück, “Franz in luck”, was a headline that tracked Beckenbauer’s career since he burst on to the national scene as an 18-year-old.
“In a thoroughly un‑German way, he was born under a lucky star, someone who had the kind of successes fall into his lap for which others had to work their socks off,” the daily paper Taz wrote in its obituary of Beckenbauer, who died on Monday aged 78.
