Bayern Munich members have voted to retire the club’s No 5 shirt in honour of their former player and manager Franz Beckenbauer, who died in January this year aged 78.
Beckenbauer — nicknamed ‘Der Kaiser’ — was widely considered to be one of the greatest ever footballers and is one of just three men (alongside Mario Zagallo and Didier Deschamps) to win the World Cup as both a player and a manager, lifting the trophy in 1974 and again in 1990.
The German club’s members voted to pass the motion unilaterally at their annual general meeting (AGM) on Sunday to retire the club’s No 5 shirt, which was made iconic by Beckenbauer across 13 seasons at Bayern. The shirt number is currently not occupied at the club.
“Dearest Franz, you made this club what it is today, a byword for the greatest possible success, a unique style and profound humanity, as a player, coach, president and companion,” Bayern president Herbert Hainer said at the AGM.
“You gave Bayern the charisma that continues to have an impact today, Franz, we miss you. What’s left and what binds us is the memory of you. His legacy was to always have an open ear for everyone. Take time for each other — that is certainly his greatest legacy.”
Beckenbauer was twice named European Footballer of the Year and won the European Cup on three occasions in consecutive years between 1974 and 1976 with Bayern, with whom he also won four Bundesliga titles and four DFB-Pokals alongside the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1967.
Beckenbauer defines Bayern’s soul
Shirt retirements are not common in German football and this is the first in Bayern’s history. It’s fitting that it should be Beckenbauer’s No 5, though, because the club’s past and present unquestionably looks entirely different without him. He was the total of his achievements, of course, but also helped to define the soul of the club, from which he remains indistinguishable, eleven months after his death.
Beckenbauer was integral to Bayern’s grip on the formative Bundesliga, winning four titles in five years between 1969 and 1974, and in becoming the European power that they remain today. Beckenbauer was captain of the three sides that won each European Cup between 1974 and 1976. More than that, though, and beyond his Der Kaiser nickname, so often parroted and quoted today, Beckenbauer became the symbol of what the club would come to represent: quality, confidence, class — the benchmark of German football for years to come.
But Beckenbauer’s influence has been very literal, of course. On the sweeper position, of course, the dimensions of which he changed forever. He also remains one of only three men to win the World Cup as a player and coach of pre-unification West Germany in 1974 and 1990, and would also coach Bayern to a Bundesliga title in 1994.
His later years, as a statesman and powerbroker, were not without their complications and controversies, but the tender response to his death in Bavaria — and Germany as a whole — reflected the space he occupied in the culture. Announcing the motion to retire his shirt, club president Hainer’s voice even cracked several times, describing perfectly the gravity of Beckenbauer and the significance of the action.
Most likely, it will never happen again. Without doubt, there will never anyone in the club’s future who challenges Beckenbauer’s place among Bayern Munich’s immortals.
(Top image: Werner OTTO/ullstein bild via Getty Images)
