Franz Beckenbauer was the heart of America's first soccer 'super team'
Franz Beckenbauer — the German defender affectionately known as Der Kaiser — achieved plenty across his peerless career. He won the Champions League, the Ballon d'Or and a World Cup, then moved into coaching and won the World Cup again, this time as a manager.
But when Beckenbauer reflected on his career in 2014, none of those achievements shined as brightly for him as his time in America leading the fledgling New York Cosmos to glory with Pele, Giorgio Chinaglia and Carlos Alberto.
"It was the greatest time in my life," Beckenbauer told Sports Illustrated of his five-year stint with the Cosmos. "All my teammates lived in Hoboken or Fort Lee, but a friend of mine said, 'Don't go there. Stay in Manhattan.' And he was right. I lived in the Central Park area, and it was the best time of my life."
Beckenbauer died Monday at age 78. While the Kaiser will always belong to his native Germany, he will be fondly missed in his adopted home of America, too.
When Beckenbauer arrived at the New York Cosmos in 1977, he was one of many foreign superstars lured in by the promise of the North American Soccer League. The league was born in 1968 but launched into public consciousness in 1975 with the arrival of Brazilian legend Pele.
"If you go there [to an established European or South American club], all you can win is a championship," Cosmos GM Clive Toye told Pele at the time. "Come here, and you can win a country."
Pele's arrival galvanized the league and attracted more stars, including Johan Cruyff, George Best and Gerd Müller. Many came in the twilight years of their careers, hoping to earn money and fame in the new American soccer market, but Beckenbauer was different. He arrived at the height of his powers, just three years after winning the World Cup with West Germany. In many ways, he took a bigger chance on American soccer than any of them.
And that chance paid off.
Although the NASL folded after 16 wild years of excess and mismanagement, soccer in America continued to grow. The "super team" model of the New York Cosmos went on to inspire MLS' Los Angeles Galaxy, which signed David Beckham and Zlatan Ibrahimovic to boost its global popularity. And, of course, the Galaxy's success went on to inspire Inter Miami, which signed the biggest player in the world, Lionel Messi, in July 2023.
"It's night and day," Beckenbauer told Sports Illustrated about the difference between the NASL and MLS. "We were like the pioneers. But we played on artificial turf and on baseball fields with lines. Now you have your own stadiums. It's different. Soccer is part of the sports now in the U. S."
Without the co-sign of players like Beckenbauer, professional soccer in America might not have survived the dead period between the death of the NASL in 1984 and the birth of MLS in 1996. It was the magic that people like Beckenbauer brought — and the promise that it could be recaptured — that kept the proverbial lights on for soccer in the United States.
There's more to Beckenbauer than just his American legacy. He's a complicated figure in soccer, one equally influential on the field, in the technical box and in the boardroom, and he made decisions that many fans continue to question.
But as media, fans and industry reflect on Beckenbauer's death and influence, we must not forget the wonderfully symbiotic relationship he built with American soccer in the 1970s. His love of our game —and our love of him in return — sowed the seeds of the sleek, healthy and inclusive professional American soccer pyramid we cherish today.
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