We lost but it was beautiful to hear the final whistle... I’d had to mark Bobby for two hours!
Beckenbauer on THAT goal and why England deserved to win
FIFTY years on and The Kaiser, like the majority of his people, still disputes that goal. The great Franz Beckenbauer smiles in that unfailingly courteous way of his when asked about the shot from Geoff Hurst which came down off the German crossbar.
The 1966 World Cup final was televised in black and white but no matter how much every frame and every photograph is scrutinised it still remains a grey area to this day.
Of that critical moment in English football’s only glory, there is no absolute proof the ball actually went in before it came out.
Tofik Bakhramov, a ‘Russian’ linesman perhaps with the guns of the Second World War still echoing in his ears, said it did and Alf Ramsey’s embattled team went 3-2 up in extra time. Beckenbauer, however, is just as convinced it did not.
There is no beer-barrel thumping and no rancour. He even goes so far as to concede that England were worthy winners.
But of that goal he simply shrugs and says: ‘The law states it is a goal when the ball crosses the goal-line in its entirety. That wasn’t the case. I was very close. The ball touched the goal-line but did not go beyond it completely. Hence it was not a goal. We can’t blame the referee or the linesman because it happened so fast.’
Beckenbauer is surprisingly relaxed talking about probably the most discussed ussed incident in the annals of football, but it is not his most abiding memory of that Wembley afternoon. Intriguingly his sharpest recollection is of the final whistle, which came seconds after Hurst made sure it was all over by rounding off the only hat-trick in World Cup final history.
Though not for the reason we might imagine. Not because it signalled defeat for the Germans.
Astonishingly, he was as delighted as Bobby Moore and his men to hear the final whistle from the referee which signalled the making of history for England.
‘The most beautiful moment of the match for me was that final whistle,’ he says. ‘That was because it was my job to watch over Bobby Charlton for what turned out to be 120 minutes. To win that personal duel I had to raise my performance to my limit, even beyond.’
The irony lives on that Charlton had also been asked by Ramsey to mark Beckenbauer out of the game, an instruction he hated but like Beckenabauer obeyed for the good of the team.
The upshot of them keeping each other such close company on the Wembley turf that day was that neither of these two majestic footballers made much other impact on the game.
The Kaiser’s respect for Charlton has survived for half a century, as it has for England’s other Bobby despite the premature death of England captain Moore in February 1993. Beckenbauer says: ‘They were the primary England players. The backbone of that team.
‘Bobby Charlton stood alongside Pele as the greatest players of their generation and I deeply value his friendship to this day.
‘Bobby Moore was a giant. The greatest defender in the world. We were great friends and I miss him every day on the world football scene. We all do.’
When the conversation turns to Moore, Beckenbauer invariably remembers their visits with each other’s families and reminisces fondly about them playing chess together on a sunny afternoon in the garden of Bobby’s house in Chigwell.
Who won? With his customary courtesy, he smiles and says: ‘I can’t remember.’
As for the final, there is not so much as a trace of regret in his reflections on defeat.
‘Was I disappointed we lost that day?’ he says. ‘On the contrary. We were not the favourites. It was a pleasure for us to reach the finale and we were proud that we were able to extend that England team to the limit. No- one in advance believed we were capable of becoming world champions. So we were able to go back home to Germany with our heads held high.’
Ever the gentleman, Beckenbauer acknowledges the merit of England’s triumph.
He says: ‘They deserved to win it. Not necessarily because they were the better team but because throughout the 120 minutes they were the more constant team.’
The Kaiser went on to become the only man to win the World Cup as player, captain and manager. Not only all that but he later used the charm and diplomacy which brought him high office in the game to help Germany win the right to host the 2006 World Cup, much to England’s chagrin.
Had there been so much as the slightest tinge of regret about the way events unfolded in north-west London on that summer’s day 50 years ago, it would have been erased by those subsequent achievements.
As for England’s failure to reach so much as one more final, let alone win another World Cup, The Kaiser and his country remain as ‘perplexed’ as the rest of us.