Hey lad, who do you think you are? Franz ******* Beckenbauer?

FOR those of a certain age, his name could be heard on the muddied fields of Sunday League football every weekend.

The big centre-half, after a skinful the night before, would try and play out from the back, get dispossessed by the striker, who would go on to score.

“Hey, lad. Who do you think you are? Franz

**** ing Beckenbauer?”

And there you have Der Kaiser in a nutshell.

To be remembered as one of the greatest footballers the world has ever seen is special. To be remembered as a footballer who invented a style of play is something else.

In sporting terms, Beckenbauer was a pioneer of cool.

After his majestic captain’s display in the

1974 World Cup final against Johan Cruyff’s Netherlands, Beckenbauer was heard only half-joking that it had not been his most enjoyable performance because he had been compelled to head the ball too often.

Beckenbauer was a defender who was not keen on heading the ball. He was not overly keen on breaking sweat, either.

As more than one ex-player said on hearing news of Beckenbauer’s passing, he could have played most of his games in a neatly-tailored suit.

But, of course, he was not a defender, he was a player, he was – as Cruyff would have acknowledged – a total footballer.

Beckenbauer said it had been a great honour to mark Sir Bobby Charlton in the 1966 World Cup final (above, the rivals in action).

What he did not know is that Sir Alf Ramsey had also told Charlton to mark Beckenbauer, such was

Der Kaiser’s brilliance at creating danger from the back.

Beckenbauer and Charlton, who we lost less than three months ago, became great friends and footballing statesmen.

Although before that transition into statesmanship, Beckenbauer was a brilliant coach.

If you could not learn from Beckenbauer, you could learn from no one.

There is no sugarcoating the suspicions that led to an investigation into how Germany won the right to host World Cup 2006, Beckenbauer leading the bid and admitting a payment of £6.1million to FIFA by the German Football Association was a

‘mistake’.

But speak as you find and in his dealings with the English media, Beckenbauer was always externally courteous, extremely polite and extremely likeable.

He was as smooth in the corridors of power as he was on the pitch.

But whenever one of football’s true icons dies – Charlton, Pele, Diego Maradona – we remember them for what they did with the ball at their feet.

And with the ball at his feet, few could do what Beckenbauer could do.

So the next time your pub team’s centre-half has ideas above his or her station, remember what to ask them.