For decades you could hardly watch an hour of West or all-German television without seeing Franz Beckenbauer playing, coaching, climbing into helicopters or simply talking. Beckenbauer was everywhere and always there – and then suddenly he wasn’t anymore. Some people age, others disappear.
He had already withdrawn years before his death. Sick and hurt. The few pictures that exist of him from his final years show a weaker, old man, gray and gaunt. He also disappeared physically. Particularly tragic for a person like that and was like Franz Beckenbauer.
