WC is crowning glory for Franz

Berlin: Franz Beckenbauer reigns everywhere at Germany's World Cup.

"Der Kaiser" has long enjoyed a special status as a national institution; and whatever team lifts the trophy this time, he already has his third World Cup win.

With Beckenbauer as captain, West Germany won the title at home in 1974 against the favoured Netherlands.

In 1990, he managed the team to its most recent World Cup title; a decade later, Beckenbauer's lobbying and global network of friends helped Germany land the 2006 tournament, beating out South Africa backed by FIFA president Sepp Blatter.

"Without you, Germany probably would not have got the nod for the WorldCup," Chancellor Angela Merkel told Beckenbauer, now the head of the organising committee, earlier this year.

That admiration earned the 60-year-old loud cheers from the home fans as he took to the field at Friday's opening ceremony.

It also has made him spectacularly omnipresent in advertisements for everything from beer to banks via cellphones and electricity suppliers.

When the commercial ends, World Cup viewers usually see more of Beckenbauer. With a helicopter at hand, he aims to attend 48 of the 64 matches.

On Saturday, he rubbed shoulders with Britain's Prince William as England beat Paraguay in Frankfurt, then appeared alongside Ivory Coast's Prime Minister in Hamburg as Argentina beat the African newcomer.

There is little danger of Beckenbauer taking a self-satisfied break when the tournament ends July 9.

"I might have a thousand thoughts about what we could have done even better, where we may have made mistakes," he was quoted as saying by the Bild daily just before the World Cup kicked off.

"But then it will be over, my duty will have been done, and I will turn to new challenges," he added.

"That's always the way with me. It has been for 60 years. Two days after the final, the World Cup probably already will be far away for me."

In six months starting in October, his World Cup duties took him to all 31 countries which sent teams.

He also is president of Bayern Munich, Germany's most successful club; a vice president of the German soccer federation; a newspaper columnist; and a regular television soccer commentator.

Although sometimes described as Germany's top soccer diplomat, the outspoken Beckenbauer often has sounded undiplomatic, once calling FIFA greedy and accusing it of trying to set "crazy" ticket prices.

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"There was some disharmony with FIFA on this, and if we are self-critical maybe some of our words should not have been made public," Beckenbauer said.

At home, Beckenbauer rarely shies away from offering his thoughts on the German team.

In March, he blasted coach Juergen Klinsmann for skipping a workshop of World Cup coaches and added his voice to criticism of Klinsmann's insistence on splitting time between Germany and his home in California.

Beckenbauer himself seems above criticism in a country that generally revels in agonizing over its own shortcomings.

"He did everything that a German is not supposed to do," former teammate Paul Breitner once said of Beckenbauer. "He got divorced, he left his children, he eloped, he had tax debts, he left his girlfriend."

"Der Kaiser" is always forgiven.

When he fathered a child with a Bayern Munich secretary during a Christmas party tryst, Beckenbauer cheerfully acknowledged it later by saying it wasn't such a "great crime."

Beckenbauer and his second wife, Sybille, divorced in late 2004. He has said he plans to marry 39-year-old partner Heidi Burmester.

The son of a postal worker, Beckenbauer gained fame with Bayern. He also played for the New York Cosmos and with Hamburger SV.

He won five Bundesliga championships, four with Bayern and one with Hamburg, and the European Champions Cup three times with Bayern.

He played in 424 Bundesliga games, won the European Cup Winners' Cup, and played 103 games for West Germany.

He also won a Bundesliga championship and the UEFA Cup as coach of Bayern, was Germany's Player of the Year four times and Europe's player of the year in 1972 and 1976.

He and Brazil's Mario Zagallo are the only men to have both played and coached their countries to World Cup titles.

So, what's left for Beckenbauer after staging soccer's biggest show?

In the past some pundits have suggested him as a potential FIFA president, but Blatter already has made plain he will run again next year and nobody else has offered any opposition yet.

"I live today. I don't know what will happen in 10 years," he said recently. "Maybe I will climb mountains. Maybe I will take on a whole new task."