Soccer in Sun and Shadow

Goal by Beckenbauer

It happened at the World Cup in 1966. Germany was playing Switzerland.

Uwe Seeler launched the attack along with Franz Beckenbauer, the two of them like Sancho Panza and Don Quixote, the ball fired by an invisible trigger, back and forth, yours and mine. Once the entire Swiss defense was left useless as a deaf ear, Beckenbauer faced the goalkeeper Elsener, who leaped to his left. Beckenbauer pivoted at full tilt, shot to the opposite side, and in it went.

Beckenbauer was twenty and that was his first goal in a World Cup. After that he took part in four more, as player or manager, and never finished below third place. Twice he raised the Rimet Cup: playing in ’74 and managing in ’90. Bucking the trend toward a soccer of sheer panzer-style strength, he proved that elegance can be more powerful than a tank and delicacy more penetrating than a howitzer.

This emperor of the midfield, known as “The Kaiser,” was born in a working-class section of Munich, but he commanded both attack and defense with nobility: in the back nothing escaped him, not one ball, not a fly, not a mosquito could get through; and when he crossed the field he was like fire.